THE   GERMAN    EMPIRE    BETWEEN 
TWO   WARS 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO  •    DALLAS 
ATLANTA   •    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE   GERMAN    EMPIRE 
BETWEEN   TWO   WARS 

A  STUDY  OF  THE  POLITICAL  AND  SOCIAL 

DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE   NATION 

BETWEEN  1871  AND  1914 


BY 

ROBERT   HERNDON    FIFE,  Jr. 

PROFESSOR   IN   WESLEYAN    UNIVERSITY 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 
1916 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1916, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  April,  1916. 


^3 


1  ar^ 


Nuiisoati  ^usa 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO 

MY   FATHER  AND   MOTHER 

IN    LOVE    AND    HONOR 


331452 


PREFACE 

No  political  development  in  the  past  half-century  has 
been  so  striking  as  the  growth  of  the  German  empire. 
Such  a  statement  is  the  merest  platitude  to-day  when 
the  world  is  being  rocked  to  its  foundation  by  the  fright- 
ful readjustment  which  may  be  traced  mainly  to  this 
cause.  It  is,  perhaps,  equally  trite  to  say  that  hand  in 
hand  with  this  growth  there  has  gone  forward  an  evolu- 
tion within  the  empire  which  is  just  as  striking.  Year 
after  year  as  the  nation  went  on  adding  to  its  population 
and  piling  up  matchless  resources  in  industry  and  com- 
merce and  still  greater  possibiHties  in  the  training  of  its 
scientists  and  men  of  affairs  it  also  added  tremendously 
to  its  burdens  and  problems.  To  the  growing  dangers 
without  there  were  added  dangers  within,  caused  by  the 
ever  sharpening  strife  between  feudalism  and  democ- 
racy, agriculture  and  commerce,  industry  and  labor. 
The  unstable  equilibrium  thus  caused  might  long  since 
have  toppled  to  a  fall  had  not  the  rise  in  power  without 
been  accompanied  by  a  growing  devotion  to  national 
unity  and  national  ambitions. 

Out  of  the  turmoil  of  Germany's  foreign  and  domestic 
struggles  there  has  stood  forth  more  and  more  clearly 
a  great  contrast,  the  contrast  between  the  progress  of 
the  nation  along  economic  lines  and  its  arrest  in  poHtical 
and  social  development.  It  was  this  contrast,  which 
has  struck  the  attention  of  so  many  observers,  that  sug- 
gested the  present  work.  To  an  American  committed 
to  the  principles  of  democracy  it  was  of  the  greatest 
interest  to  learn  why  a  people  that  has  shown  itself  so 


viii  PREFACE 

hospitable  to  every  new  idea  in  science  should  have  put 
off  so  long  the  liberalizing  of  its  chief  public  institu- 
tions. In  a  period  that  saw  the  political  evolution  of  so 
many  lands  from  Portugal  to  China  what  was  it  that 
made  a  nation  standing  at  the  apex  of  modern  culture 
tolerate  so  much  that  is  reactionary  in  political  and 
social  life  ? 

Upon  closer  study,  several  things  became  at  once 
clear.  First,  that  the  causes  underlying  Germany's  ap- 
parent lack  of  inner  development  are  closely  inter- 
woven with  the  foreign  relations  of  the  empire.  It 
also  appeared  that  much  of  Germany's  conservatism 
is  only  apparent  and  that  the  same  ultra-modern  and 
radical  attitude  exists  in  many  sides  of  the  political 
and  social  life  of  the  nation  as  has  made  itself  so  notice- 
able in  its  economic  life.  Lastly,  it  was  seen  that  the 
nation's  political  progress  in  recent  years  has  by  no 
means  been  so  slow  as  it  has  seemed  and  that  there 
exist  many  liberal  and  democratic  tendencies  that  only 
await  a  favorable  moment  to  come  to  the  surface. 

This  book  is  the  result  of  these  studies  anc.  is  an 
attempt  to  bring  American  readers  nearer  to  an  under- 
standing of  present-day  Germany,  as  it  has  appeared  to 
the  writer.  It  has  been  necessary,  first  of  all,  to  sketch 
the  history  of  the  nation's  foreign  relations  since  the 
treaty  of  Frankfort.  Here  the  author  makes  no  claim 
to  originality :  he  has  merely  sought  to  tell  as  fairly 
as  possible  the  well-known  story  of  the  growth  of  the 
empire  amid  friendly  and  hostile  neighbors  and  to  show 
how  national  unity  and  ambition  grew  with  power  and 
prestige.  The  second  part  has  then  been  devoted  to  a 
study  of  the  imperial  government  in  its  relation  to  the 
emperor  and  the  parties.  Especially  the  latter  are  dis- 
cussed in  history  and  purpose  in  some  detail  to  show 
how  the  development  of  free  institutions  has  been 
checked  by  the  growth  of  bitter  class  hatred  and  by 
the  acute  economic  rivalry  that  came  with  the  increase 
of  population  and  national  wealth.  A  third  part  treats 
of  some  of  the  chief  inner  difficulties  with  which  the 


PREFACE  IX 

national  spirit  has  had  to  contend  in  its  growth.  In  a 
fourth  section  certain  changes  and  tendencies  in  three 
pubHc  institutions  have  been  studied.  The  city,  the 
school  and  the  press  illustrate  in  a  peculiar  way  the 
conservatism  and  progress  so  typical  of  present-day 
Germany.  Each,  however,  differs  so  widely  from  its 
American  counterpart  that  it  has  been  necessary  to 
give  in  some  detail  the  striking  features  of  each.  No 
originality  is,  of  course,  claimed  for  the  sketches  of 
municipal  government  or  school  administration,  but  an 
effort  has  been  made  in  each  case  to  put  the  German 
system  before  the  American  reader  as  simply  as  pos- 
sible. In  this  section  history  plays  naturally  a  less 
important  role  than  in  the  earlier  parts ;  instead,  I  have 
tried  to  present  clearly  the  most  striking  tendencies 
now  working  in  these  institutions. 

^  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  this  is  not  a  war 
book.  It  was  conceived  in  peace  and  deals  with  years 
of  peace ;  and  while  particularly  in  the  first  part  the 
shadow  of  war  necessarily  falls  across  its  pages,  events 
since  the  call  to  arms  have  been  mentioned  only  when 
necessary  to  illustrate  tendencies  that  belong  to  the 
years  before.  With  the  lowering  of  the  banner  of  peace 
which  for  forty-three  years  waved  over  Germany  in  its 
forward  march  along  the  ways  of  political  evolution  as 
well  as  material  and  scientific  progress,  a  chapter  in  the 
nation's  history  was  closed,  and  certainly  when  Mars 
no  longer  rules  the  hour,  another  and  a  very  different 
chapter  will  be  opened.  It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this 
book  to  try  to  lift  the  veil  from  the  future.  It  must  be 
remembered,  however,  that  no  people  is  more  deeply 
conservative  and  reverent  of  the  past  than  the  Germans, 
and  that  whatever  the  future  may  hold  in  store  as  the 
result  of  the  present  titanic  conflict,  the  Germany  of 
the  future  will  be  an  organic  growth  out  of  the  Germany 
of  the  present,  and  the  deeds  and  struggles  described  in 
the  following  pages  will  form  the  basis  of  the  new  time. 
The  author  is  well  aware  that  anything  that  is  pub- 
lished about  Germany  at  the  present  time  runs  the  risk 


X  PREFACE 

of  being  looked  upon  as  propaganda  of  one  sort  or  an- 
other. Certainly  nothing  is  further  from  his  purpose, 
and  those  who  seek  here  a  general  arraignment  of  Ger- 
many or  an  apology  for  her  acts  and  motives  will  be 
disappointed.  For  those  who  can  lay  aside  the  preju- 
dices of  the  moment  and  seek  in  a  spirit  of  impai-tiality 
to  understand  the  immediate  past  of  Germany  and  its 
people,  it  is  hoped  that  this  work  will  be  of  help.  At 
the  same  time,  it  is  not  a  mere  record  of  scientific  facts, 
but  a  study  by  an  American  for  Americans  of  the  prog- 
ress and  problems  of  a  contemporary  nation.  Under 
such  circumstances  it  is  not  possible  to  lay  aside  alto- 
gether the  glasses  of  national  prejudice,  and  the  author 
does  not  claim  to  have  done  so.  Nor  has  he  been  able 
to  hide  a  deep  and  abiding  faith  in  free  institutions  nor 
a  sympathy  for  the  forces  of  democracy  in  German  life. 
'  He  is  satisfied  if  his  work  shows  something  of  the  spirit 
/  of  tolerance,  the  highest  virtue  to  which  the  student  of 
-^.  a  foreign  culture  can  aspire.  This  spirit  realizes  that 
every  national  ideal,  ambition  or  prejudice  has  deep 
roots  in  the  nation's  history  that  explain  and  to  a  greater 
or  less  degree  justify  it.  It  knows  also  that  no  institu- 
--— tion  can  be  praised  or  blamed  until  it  is  fully  understood 
in  its  relation  to  the  nation's  past ;  still  less  can  a  whole 
people  be  indicted  or  extolled  until  its  opportunities  and 
difficulties  have  been  thoroughly  weighed.  Finally,  it 
takes  as  the  safest  philosophy  the  sublime  admonition 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount:  "Judge  not  that  ye  be 
not  judged ! " 

An  effort  has  been  made  to  present  a  readable  book. 
For  this  reason  statistics  have  been  cut  down  to  the 
lowest  point  possible  for  clearness  of  illustration  and 
everything  in  the  way  of  learned  apparatus  has  been 
kept  out.  It  would  be  idle  to  try  to  name  authorities. 
The  study  of  Germany  and  German  life  has  been  my 
earnest  occupation  for  many  years,  and  in  giving  a  pic- 
ture of  recent  German  history  I  have  laid  under  tribute 
every  source  that  has  been  enjoyed :  years  of  study  and 
travel  in  Germany,  the  association  with  German  friends 


PREFACE  xi 

and  particularly  the  reading  through  many  years  of  the 
German  periodical  press. 

In  conclusion  it  must  be  said  that  any  such  work  as 
this  is  of  course  a  fragment.  It  is  not  possible  to  put 
into  one  book  the  spirit  of  a  nation.  The  purpose  of 
the  work  will  be  fulfilled  if  it  makes  plain  a  few  sides 
of  the  hfe  of  a  great  people  in  the  throes  of  development. 

Grateful  acknowledgment  is  due  to  my  colleague,  Pro- 
fessor George  M.  Dutcher,  for  a  careful  revision  of  the 
entire  proof,  where  his  criticisms  and  suggestions  have 
been  of  the  greatest  importance.  To  another  colleague, 
Professor  C.  H.  Conley,  who  has  kindly  read  the  proof, 
I  also  owe  a  number  of  valuable  suggestions.  Dr.  George 
Kartzke,  now  of  Yale  University,  has  given  me  helpful 
hints  regarding  the  subject-matter  of  parts  of  Chapters 
XV  and  XVI.  The  Rev.  Stanislas  Musiel  of  Middle- 
town,  Conn.,  has  kindly  helped  with  information  regard- 
ing Polish  words  and  proper  names. 

Thanks  are  due  to  the  editor  of  the  North  American 
Reviezv  for  permission  to  reprint  a  part  of  Chapter  II. 

To  my  wife  I  am  sincerely  grateful  for  constant  help 
and  encouragement  throughout  the  writing  of  the  book. 
In  the  preparation  of  the  index  she  has  done  the  greater 
part  of  the  work. 


CONTENTS 


PART   I 
THE   EMPIRE   ABROAD 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    The  French  Mortgage 3 

II.     Allies  and  Enemies  to  the  East          ...  26 

III.  The  Rivalry  with  England 50 

IV.  Expansion  and  Ambitions 72 


PART   II 

THE   EMPIRE   AT   HOME 

V.     Personal  Government  and  Parliamentary  Rule  ioi 
VI.    The  Government  and  the  Parties       .        .        .114 

VII.    Feudalism  and  Agriculture 139 

VIII.    Liberalism  and  Industry       .....  159 

PART   III 

THE   EMPIRE'S    PROBLEMS 

IX.    The  Proletarian  in  Politics        ....  177 

X.    The  Church  in  Politics 200 

XL    The  Conquered  Provinces 217 

XII.    The  Polish  Question      .        -        »        -        .        .  234 


XIV 


CONTENTS 


PART    IV 
TRANSFORMATIONS   AND   TENDENCIES 


CHAPTER 
XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 


The  Rule  of  the  Cities        .... 
The  City  as  a  Business  and  Social  Agent 
Conservatism  and  Progress  in  Education 
State  and  Church  in  the  Schools 
The  Press  and  Public  Opinion    . 


PAGE 
269 

359 


PART    I 
THE   EMPIRE   ABROAD 


CHAPTER  I 

The  French  Mortgage 

"Soldiers  of  the  German  army,  I  leave  to-day  the 
soil  of  France,  on  which  the  German  name  has  won  so 
many  of  war's  honors  and  where  so  much  beloved  blood 
has  flowed."  With  these  words  telegraphed  from  Nancy 
on  March  15,  1871,  Emperor  WilUam  the  Victorious,  as 
the  Germans  are  fond  of  calling  him,  bade  farewell  to 
the  German  soldiers  who  still  occupied  French  fortresses. 
Peace  had  been  made  and  the  conditions  had  just  been 
confirmed  by  the  French  national  assembly  hastily  sum- 
moned to  meet  at  Bordeaux.  Alsace  and  a  part  of 
Lorraine  had  already  become  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
German  territory.  Thiers,  the  temporary  head  of  what 
government  there  still  was  in  France,  had  yielded  to 
Bismarck's  hard  conditions  only  when  yielding  seemed 
necessary  in  order  to  prevent  the  complete  dismember- 
ment of  France,  and  the  aged  statesman  was  already 
considering  plans  to  raise  the  thousand  milhon  dollars 
war  indemnity  and  so  remove  the  German  army  of  oc- 
cupation. 

The  German  conditions  on  which  the  war  of  1870-71 
was  brought  to  an  end  were  hard,  but  they  proceeded 
from  a  poUcy  which  is  at  least  comprehensible.  It  is  a 
common  fallacy  to  suppose  that  Emperor  William  and  jj 

Bismarck  weakened  and  humihated  France  as  revenge 
for  the  humihations  put  upon  Prussia  by  the  great 
Napoleon  at  Jena  and  after.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
Prussian  and  Saxon  hearts  burned  with  a  wild  and 
justifiable  joy  when  the  nephew  of  the  great  Corsican 

3 


'*i 


4     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

was  carried  off  a  prisoner  to  a  German  chateau,  and 
French  arms,  which  had  brought  so  much  humihation 
and  sorrow  to  Germany,  were  themselves  humbled  into 
the  dust.  It  was,  however,  no  such  sentimental  con- 
siderations as  these  which  dictated  the  treaty  of  Frank- 
fort in  1 87 1,  but  a  resolute  determination  to  secure  for 
generations  to  come  the  new-forged  German  empire 
against  French  revenge  for  the  defeats  before  Metz 
and  the  frightful  catastrophe  to  French  arms  at  Sedan. 
In  fact,  in  the  appropriation  of  French  territory  the 
German  general  staff  under  the  leadership  of  the  great 
tactician  Moltke  insisted  on  taking  more  than  the 
statesman  Bismarck  had  wished  to  demand.  Not  only 
were  Alsace  to  the  height  of  the  Vosges  mountains  and 
the  German  part  of  Lorraine  to  be  ceded,  but  the  new 
boundary  was  to  dip  to  the  westward  and  include  Metz, 
which  had  been  won  with  so  much  blood.  Thus  the 
two  strongest  fortresses  west  of  the  Rhine  —  Strasburg, 
the  eye  of  the  upper  Rhine  valley,  and  Metz,  the  key 
to  the  upper  Moselle  —  were  to  be  a  barrier  against  the 
French  advance  when  the  war  for  revenge  should  really 
come.     ;. 

"France  will  consider  any  peace  simply  as  an  armis- 
tice," wrote  Bismarck  immediately  after  Sedan ;  and 
he  firmly  believed  that  the  revenge  idea  would  become 
dominant  as  soon  as  the  urgent  business  of  the  day  was 
disposed  of.  In  this  faith  it  seemed  the  highest  patriotic 
duty  to  provide  that  that  business  should  be  heavy 
enough  to  give  the  young  German  empire  time  to  work 
out  its  problems,  and  to  soften  the  suspicions  of  Bavaria, 
Wiirtemberg  and  some  of  the  smaller  states  into  a  com- 
mon German  patriotism.  Hence  Bismarck  laid  upon 
the  demand  for  the  two  provinces  another  for  a  billion 
dollars,  to  be  paid  in  three  years,  a  drain  which  in  the 
opinion  of  himself  and  his  councillors  would  give  France 
so  much  to  do  that  her  financial  recovery  would  be  a 
matter  of  generations. 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  5 

In  this  he  was  mistaken.  In  recent  years  it  has 
ceased  to  be  the  fashion  to  picture  France  as  a  decadent 
nation.  Those  who  still  incline  to  this  opinion  should 
read  over  the  wonderful  process  of  recovery  and  growth 
which  make  up  the  history  of  the  first  decades  of  the 
third  republic.  At  the  end  of  the  "terrible  year" 
in  the  spring  of  1871  France  found  herself  sunk  to  the 
position  of  a  fourth  or  fifth  rate  power,  over  half  a  million 
of  her  fighting  youth  killed  or  wounded  or  in  hospitals, 
a  million  and  a  half  of  her  sturdiest  and  most  progressive 
people  lost  to  the  French  name  and  tongue.  Such  was 
the  energy,  however,  with  which  Thiers  and  his  cabinet 
met  the  situation  that  within  nine  months  after  peace 
was  concluded,  two-fifths  of  the  war  indemnity  had 
been  paid,  and  in  September,  1873,  the  last  sou  of  a  sum 
which  was  for  that  time  colossal  was  turned  into  the 
German  treasury  and  the  last  German  helmet  left  French 
soil.  Even  in  view  of  the  much  greater  sums  to  which 
the  world  has  become  accustomed  during  the  great 
European  war,  it  is  astonishing  to  read  that  in  July, 
1872,  the  French  government  actually  refused  eight 
billions  of  dollars  oversubscribed  on  a  five  per  cent  loan. 
The  energy  which  justified  this  immense  credit  also 
showed  itself  in  the  recreation  of  the  army.  In  De- 
cember, 1872,  the  French  military  forces  were  reorganized 
on  the  Prussian  system  with  a  five-year  compulsory 
military  service ;  in  May  of  the  following  year  competent 
observers  already  judged  the  French  army  stronger  than 
before  the  war. 

It  would  not  have  been  natural  had  Germany  watched 
this  process  of  new  growth  with  anything  approach- 
ing satisfaction.  All  German  statesmen  and  soldiers 
were  thoroughly  obsessed  with  the  idea  that  France 
was  only  biding  its  time  for  revenge,  and  each  new  step 
in  the  development  of  the  new  republic  was  accompanied 
by  warnings  and  threats  from  across  the  Vosges.  In 
1872  Moltke  predicted  war  for  the  following  spring; 


6     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

two  years  later,  during  the  strenuous  days  of  the  KuUur- 
kampf,  Bismarck  threatened  France  with  war  on  account 
of  pro-clerical  agitation  across  the  border.  In  1875  a 
regular  campaign  was  begun  in  the  Berlin  Post,  then  as 
now  distinguished  for  its  chauvinism,  and  continued  in 
that  and  other  journals  for  months.  France  had  added 
a  fourth  battahon  to  its  military  organization,  making 
an  addition  of  144,000  men,  and  German  generals  talked 
of  striking  at  once  before  the  republic  could  complete 
its  preparations.  How  much  of  this  agitation,  which 
went  on  for  months  in  spite  of  the  anxious  protestations 
of  Decazes,  the  French  ambassador  at  Berlin,  was  based 
on  nervousness  and  intended  by  Bismarck  as  a  serious 
warning  to  the  Gallic  people,  how  much  was  a  part  of  the 
poUtical  game  at  home,  cannot  be  said.  It  had  one  re- 
sult which  Bismarck  did  not  foresee :  it  brought  about 
the  first  drawing  together  between  the  young  republic 
and  Russia.  Czar  Alexander  II,  beset  by  the  anxious 
entreaties  of  Decazes,  intervened  tactfully  with  the  Ger- 
man court  and  satisfied  himself  at  least  that  he  had  pre- 
vented a  war. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  sympathize  with  a  gallant  nation 
enduring  humiliations  such  as  those  which  France  suf- 
fered from  Germany  during  the  "terrible  year"  and  the 
decade  following;  but  it  is  not  worth  while  discussing 
what  might  have  been  the  results  of  a  different  poHcy  at 
the  close  of  the  war.  The  triumphant  war-lords  who 
gathered  around  Emperor  Wilham's  council  table  at  Ver- 
sailles in  the  winter  of  1871  would  not  consent  to  offer 
France,  prostrate  and  helpless,  the  same  generous  treat- 
ment which  had  been  accorded  the  fraternally  related 
Austria  in  1866,  and  in  view  of  the  bitter  humiliations 
which  German  lands  and  particularly  Prussia  had  suffered 
from  French  arms  within  the  memory  of  their  venerable\ 
sovereign,  such  generosity  would  have  been  more  thanj 
human.  Even  if  France  had  been  spared  the  loss' 
of  her  territory,  it  is  doubtful  whether  she,  hke  a  good 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  7 

sportsman,  would  have  learned  to  forget  her  temporary 
humiliation  as  Russia  has  forgotten  Sevastopol  and 
Austria  Sadowa,  allowing  the  dreams  of  revenge  to  be 
swallowed  up  in  new  international  interests.  Anyway, 
Bismarck  on  behalf  of  the  new  empire  was  not  prepared 
to  take  any  risks,  and  with  the  annexation  of  Alsace  and 
Lorraine  all  hope  of  a  friendly  relation  within  the  Hfe- 
time  of  any  of  the  actors  in  the  drama  disappeared.  This 
may  also  explain  the  vigorous  elbowings  which  the  Iron 
Chancellor  gave  the  young  republic  while  it  was  still 
struggling  against  the  wolves  of  anarchy  in  the  Commune 
and  trying  to  establish  itself  against  royalist  intrigues. 
"The  kindly  affections,"  said  Bismarck  to  his  secretary 
Busch,  "have  as  little  place  in  the  calculations  of  poHtics 
as  they  have  in  those  of  business." 

''Toujours  y  penser,  jamais  en  parler,""  "ever  present 
in  thought,  but  never  to  be  spoken  of,"  said  Gambetta  in 
speaking  of  la  revanche,  and  it  is  certain  that  dreams  of 
revenge  were  never  very  far  absent  from  a  multitude  of 
French  hearts  in  the  forty-odd  years  of  peace.  That 
they  did  not  play  a  more  important  part  in  France's 
foreign  policy  was  due  in  the  main  to  two  causes :  the 
conquest  of  power  by  the  business  class  in  the  late  seven- 
ties and  the  complete  outstripping  of  France  by  Germany 
in  the  growth  of  population  and  in  industrial  develop- 
ment. 

The  French  bourgeoisie  is  like  the  middle  class  every- 
where, peace  loving  to  the  last  degree.  After  the  resig- 
nation of  MacMahon  and  the  passing  of  the  hopes  of 
royalty  in  1879  ^  succession  of  men  came  to  the  helm 
in  the  republic  who  had  everything  to  lose  and  nothing 
to  gain  by  war.  For  the  Ferrys,  the  Waldeck-Rousseaus, 
the  Loubets  and  Briands  and  Poincares,  grown  up  over 
lawyers'  briefs  and  problems  of  civic  administration,  no 
laurel  crowns  waved  before  the  cannon's  mouth.  And 
in  this  they  fully  represented  their  constituents.  That, 
however,  the  bitter  experiences  of  the  early  seventies, 


8     THE  GERMAN    EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

which  made  so  deep  a  mark  on  French  character,  remained 
unforgotten  and  unforgiven  in  French  hearts  cannot  be 
doubted.  It  was  not  because  the  French  people  had 
grown  less  honor-loving  that  it  held  revenge  plans  in  the 
background.  The  honor  of  a  business  m.an  consists  first 
of  all  in  paying  his  debts,  protecting  his  family  from  dis- 
aster and  laying  up  a  balance  for  a  rainy  day ;  and  the 
French  ''neo-bourgeoisie"  in  the  saddle  of  the  third 
repubhc  preserved  a  business  man's  poise  in  the  midst 
of  all  the  noise  and  hubbub  of  Boulanger  episodes,  anti- 
semitic  propaganda  of  Dreyfus  days  and  Morocco  jingo- 
ism. At  least  three  times  after  the  establishment  of  the 
parliamentary  republic  France  and  Germany  seemed  on 
the  edge  of  a  struggle :  once  in  1887,  when  the  adventurer 
Boulanger  was  seeking  to  make  himself  dictator  by  ap- 
pealing to  French  jingoes,  and  twice  during  the  Morocco 
episode  —  in  1905  when  the  French  minister  Delcasse 
interposed  determined  resistance  to  Germany's  demands 
for  an  international  conference  and  again  in  the  summer 
of  191 1  after  a  German  cruiser  had  been  sent  to  the 
Moroccan  port  Agadir.  In  each  of  these  crises  the 
difficulties  dissolved  before  the  cool  second  thought  of 
the  French  people.  Boulanger  was  driven  into  exile, 
Delcasse  was  forced  into  temporary  retirement,  and  the 
Moroccan  negotiations  were  accompanied  by  a  reserve 
on  the  part  of  the  French  people  that  made  war  impossi- 
ble. 

But  it  was  not  merely  the  fact  that  the  individual 
Frenchman  had  grown  wealthy,  and  from  the  Norman 
peasant  with  his  well-filled  woollen  sock  to  the  richest 
stockholder  of  Paris  had  much  more  to  lose  than  in  1870, 
that  made  French  statesmen  and  electors  cUng  tc  a  pacific 
policy  for  more  than  forty  years  in  the  face  of  elbowing 
and  toe-treading  from  German  diplomacy.  With  the 
eyes  of  business  men  Frenchmen  saw  clearly  enough  the 
growing  risks  of  a  war  with  Germany.  In  1870  the  popu- 
lation of  France  was  almost  equal  to  that  of  Prussia  and 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  9 

her  German  allies :  after  that  time  the  population  of  the 
republic  remained  almost  stationary,  while  that  of  Ger- 
many in  the  forty-three  years  following  the  treaty  of 
Frankfort  increased  sixty-seven  per  cent.  In  spite  of  the 
falling  off  in  the  birth-rate  in  Germany,  which  has  been 
especially  apparent  since  1900,  the  decrease  in  the  death- 
rate  since  the  introduction  of  compulsory  workingmen's 
insurance  in  the  eighties  has  been  more  than  sufficient 
to  maintain  the  general  increase  in  the  population.  In 
the  period  from  1881  to  1890,  during  which  the  various 
systems  of  compulsory  workingmen's  insurance  were 
introduced,  the  excess  of  births  over  deaths  was  11.7 
per  thousand;  in  the  period  from  1901  to  1910,  when 
the  full  result  of  these  systems  was  for  the  first  time  visi- 
ble, the  surplus  was  14.3  per  thousand,  striking  enough 
when  it  is  noted  that  in  the  same  period  the  birth-rate 
declined  from  38.2  to  33.9  per  thousand.  On  the  basis 
of  these  figures  German  statisticians  have  been  accus- 
tomed to  estimate  that  before  1925  the  Fatherland  would 
have  a  population  of  over  eighty  millions  and  even  then 
be  considerably  less  densely  populated  than  other  indus- 
trial countries,  like  England  or  Belgium.  In  France 
there  were  in  this  period  several  years  when  deaths  totaled 
more  than  births.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  Ger- 
many's growing  preponderance  in  men  capable  of  bearing 
arms  was  a  factor  which  grew  more  and  more  important 
in  its  bearing  on  French  plans  and  ambitions. 

Even  more  important  than  this  to  thinking  Frenchmen 
was  the  solidification  of  national  feehng  and  the  central- 
ization in  miUtary  affairs  that  went  hand  in  hand  with 
this  bounding  forward  of  Germany's  population,  and  as 
the  years  went  by  far  surpassed  the  most  enthusiastic 
dreams  of  1870.  The  military  spirit,  which  in  that  year 
was  markedly  Prussian,  or  at  least  North  German,  pene- 
trated by  degrees  to  the  most  distant  valleys  of  the  Bava- 
rian and  Swabian  highlands.  Where  once  in  the  smaller 
states  a  vague  enthusiasm  for  German  unity  among  the 


lo     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

people  forced  their  rulers,  jealous  of  Prussia,  to  cast  in 
their  fortunes  with  the  North  German  confederation 
against  France,  now  dynasties  and  people  with  ardent 
patriotism  have  come  to  look  upon  the  empire  under  the 
hegemony  of  Prussia  and  the  leadership  of  the  Hohen- 
zollern  war-lord  as  a  mighty  entity,  in  comparison  with 
which  the  boundaries  which  divide  Wiirtemberg  and 
Baden  and  Hesse  have  only  insignificant  importance. 

If  the  growth  in  population  and  resources  and  the  solid- 
ification of  the  national  spirit  of  their  neighbor  across  the 
Vosges  impressed  the  French  banker  and  lawyer  states- 
men, still  less  could  they  close  their  eyes  to  the  vast 
military  organization  upon  which  Germany  worked  un- 
ceasingly after  the  peace  of  1871.  Forced  by  the  logic 
of  events  to  exist  as  a  nation  by  the  power  of  the  sword, 
united  Germany  was  obliged  to  keep  it  always  in  readiness. 
Again  and  again  the  French  dreams  of  revenge  were  held 
up  to  force  from  the  Reichstag  military  concessions,  which 
in  the  early  days  of  the  empire  Clerical  and  Liberal 
groups  were  unwilling  to  grant.  Thus  in  1874,  upon  the 
introduction  into  France  of  enforced  military  service 
after  the  Prussian  model,  with  the  incorporation  of  a 
fourth  battahon  into  the  regimental  cadre  and  tlie  work- 
ing out  of  a  new  line  of  defences  on  the  eastern  frontier, 
the  German  legislative  body  passed  the  Septennat,  pro- 
viding for  a  military  budget  for  seven  years  with  a  peace 
establishment  of  one  per  cent  of  the  population.  In 
1887  in  a  fight  for  a  renewal  of  the  Septennat  and  a  further 
increase  in  the  peace  establishment,  Bismarck  declared 
in  the  Reichstag:  "Not  a  single  voice  in  France  has  re- 
signed hopes  of  recovering  Alsace  and  Lorraine ;  at  any 
moment  a  government  may  come  to  the  rudder  which  will 
begin  war,"  and  he  asserted  that  in  case  of  such  a  war 
each  party  would  try  to  bleed  the  other  to  exhaustion. 
This  brutal  statement  had  its  effect,  and  a  national  wave 
of  patriotism  swept  the  opposition  away.  Again  in  the 
early  nineties,  when  France's  long  period  of  isolation  had 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  li 

come  to  an  end  through  the  alliance  with  Russia,  Bis- 
marck's successor  Caprivi  turned  this  to  account  in  carry- 
ing through  a  further  increase  in  the  number  of  recruits 
which  were  each  year  called  to  the  colors ;  once  more  in 
191 2,  following  on  the  troubled  summer  of  the  preceding 
year,  when  a  conflict  with  France  over  Morocco  seemed 
almost  unavoidable,  the  war  department  obtained  from 
the  Reichstag,  with  only  the  Socialists  and  anti-national 
groups  in  opposition,  important  increases  in  the  peace 
footing  of  artillery  and  cavalry  and  a  big  subsidy  for 
aviation. 

After  191 2  Germany's  arming  had  nothing  directly  to 
do  with  France.  As  we  shall  see,  in  the  previous  decade 
the  eyes  of  German  statesmen  had  been  turning  more  and 
more  toward  the  southeast.  The  outbreak  of  the  first 
Balkan  War  in  the  fall  of  191 2  and  the  \ictorious  progress 
of  the  Balkan  Alliance  toward  Constantinople  made  a 
great  danger  suddenly  loom  up  in  the  Danube  lands.  The 
creation  of  the  closely  welded  league  of  small  states,  some 
of  which  were  certainly  under  Russian  influence,  made 
the  position  of  Germany's  ally,  Austria,  and  consequently 
of  Germany  herself ,  precarious,  and  the  Kaiser's  ministers 
were  obliged  to  take  imm.ediate  and  drastic  measures  to 
restore  the  threatened  balance  of  power.  It  is,  however, 
noteworthy  that  in  introducing  into  the  Reichstag  the 
Defense  Bill  in  April,  1913,  the  Chancellor,  Bethmann- 
HoUweg,  called  attention  once  more  to  the  mortgage  of 
French  hatred,  and  that  the  chamber  in  voting  additions 
to  the  army  aggregating  136,000  officers  and  men,  besides 
an  immense  amount  of  war  material,  did  so  with  a 
clear  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  while  a  new  danger 
drew  all  eyes  toward  the  southeast,  it  was  impossible  to 
relax  for  one  moment  the  watch  upon  the  western  bound- 
ary. The  sudden  danger  to  the  Fatherland's  security 
and  aspirations  called  for  a  great  sacrifice,  and  the  sacrifice 
was  cheerfully  made.  Upon  all  estates  of  over  twenty- 
five  hundred  dollars  the  new  bill  laid  a  property  tax, 


12     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

varying  from  .15  per  cent  to  1.75  per  cent,  a  measure 
which  was  accepted  without  heartburnings  by  all,  from 
the  peasant  landholder  up  to  the  ruling  dynasties,  which 
had  heretofore  enjoyed  immunity  from  taxation.  Peas- 
ant and  prince,  merchant  and  manufacturer,  heavy-laden 
with  taxation  as  they  already  were,  looked  upon  this  new 
contribution  as  additional  insurance,  protecting  the 
Fatherland  against  pressing  dangers,  among  which  the 
French  mortgage  had  come  to  be  regarded  as  ever  present 
and  irremovable. 

This  tremendous  addition  to  her  eastern  neighbor's 
war  power  had  an  immediate  echo  across  the  Vosges. 
The  difference  in  population  had  become  too  enormous 
for  France  to  hope  to  meet  Germany's  armament  by  put- 
ting additional  recruits  into  the  field.  French  states- 
men already  viewed  the  military  disproportion  with 
grave  misgivings  and  were  taking  measures  to  restore 
the  balance  as  best  they  could,  when  the  introduction 
into  the  Reichstag  in  April,  191 3,  of  the  Defense  Bill 
above  referred  to  forced  them  to  immediate  action.  The 
result  of  their  deliberations  was  a  bill  providing  for  three 
years'  service  instead  of  two,  which  after  various  amend- 
ments finally  passed  the  French  Senate  on  August 7, 
1 91 3.  It  was  estimated  that  this  new  sacrifice  of  French 
youth  would  add  1 70,000  to  the  peace  footing  of  the  army. 
What  the  final  results  would  accomplish  tov/ards  restor- 
ing the  balance  could  not  be  exactly  foretold,  but  it  was 
confidently  hoped  that  through  this  additional  sacrifice 
the  French  people  would,  to  a  considerable  degree,  com- 
pensate for  the  difference  in  population. 

The  events  of  the  second  half  of  1 914  made  it  clear  that 
French  statesmen  had  not  exaggerated  Germany's  prep- 
aration for  attack.  Practically  every  German  of  mili- 
tary age  who  was  physically  sound  was  found  in  the 
crucial  hour  to  be  trained  in  some  way  for  service  and 
made  available  for  mobilization,  and  events  showed  that 
every  feature  of  organization  and  equipment  was  in  as 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  13 

nearly  perfect  condition  as  technical  education  and  punc- 
tilious fulfilment  of  duty  could  make  it.  In  1870  it  was 
said  that  the  German  engineers  had  better  maps  of  the 
French  country  next  the  frontier  than  the  French  general 
staff ;  and  in  the  years  following  the  same  patient  method 
and  careful  organization  marked  the  preparations  for 
another  struggle.  The  best  ordnance  and  tools  of  war 
for  which  the  K'rupps  are  famous  always  went  to  the 
French  frontier,  where  no  railway  embankment  was 
raised  nor  new  highway  paved  without  careful  consider- 
ation of  its  ultimate  bearing  as  an  item  in  the  national 
defenses  and  in  that  swift  advance  which  German  officers 
always  counted  upon  in  the  event  of  a  war  with  France. 
Field-Marshall  Roon,  who  was  minister  of  war  at  the  time 
of  the  outbreak  of  the  war  of  1870,  often  declared  that  the 
two  weeks  following  the  memorable  night  on  which  the 
order  for  mobilization  was  given  were  the  idlest  and  most 
care-free  of  his  life.  So  completely  had  all  details  gov- 
erning the  movement  been  worked  out  that  the  War 
Ofiice  did  not  have  to  reply  to  one  inquiry  during  this 
time  on  the  part  of  the  commanders  in  charge  of  opera- 
tions. This  was  the  model  which  German  strategists 
held  up  before  themselves  during  the  succeeding  four 
decades.  How  to  mobilize  half  a  million  men  in  forty- 
eight  hours,  and  without  stripping  the  fortresses  on  the 
Russian  frontier,  hurl  a  powerful  force  across  the  French 
hne  between  Verdun  and  Toul,  isolating  these  tremen- 
dous fortresses  in  preparation  for  the  sweep  on  Paris 
through  Belgium,  —  this  was  the  task  which  the  general 
staff  had  always  before  it  as  its  first  and  most  important 
theoretical  problem. 

How  well  the  problem  was  solved  was  fully  shown  by 
the  events  of  August,  1914.  The  force  which,  in  thirty 
days  after  the  notices  of  mobilization  were  posted,  rolled 
almost  within  gunshot  of  the  Paris  forts,  was  a  model 
war  machine  in  mobility  and  striking  power.  It  was  that 
in  great  measure  because  its  individual  units  were  the 


14     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

product  of  the  military  schoolmastering  which  begins 
when  the  German  lad  of  six  or  seven  enters  the  Volks- 
schule.  It  would  be  a  bold  historian  who  would  give  to 
any  modern  European  nation  the  palm  for  courage,  —  so 
much  the  more  are  discipline  and  technical  training 
necessary  for  efficiency.  In  the  conflict  between  France 
and  Germany,  however  brilliant  the  achievements  of 
French  officers,  however  glorious  the  courage  and  in- 
domitable the  tenacity  of  French  soldiers,  it  could  not  be 
left  out  of  consideration  that  the  percentage  of  illiteracy 
for  French  recruits  is  3.3,  while  in  Germany,  the  classic 
land  of  the  Volksschule,  it  is  two-tenths  of  one  per  cent,^ 
there  being  practically  no  illiterates  in  the  Fatherland 
except  recent  Slavic  and  Italian  immigrants.  Again,  as 
compared  with  the  feudal  solidity  of  the  German  mili- 
tary system,  the  French  have  had  to  contend  with  all  of 
those  difi&culties  of  administration  which  seem  inseparable 
from  a  republican  form  of  government.  While  no  one 
doubts  the  individual  efficiency  of  French  war  ministers, 
it  must  be  recalled  that  practically  every  crisis  in  Franco- 
German  affairs  in  the  forty  years  down  to  191 1  found  the 
French  army  from  one  cause  or  another  unprepared  for  a 
conflict.  The  most  striking  instance  of  this  was  in  1894, 
as  brought  out  in  the  testimony  of  General  Mercier,  the 
Minister  of  War,  before  the  second  Dreyfus  court-martial 
at  Rennes  five  years  later.  In  this  crisis,  when  the 
Kaiser's  court  believed  its  honor  offended  and  the  Ger- 
man sabre  was  rattling  loudly,  Mercier  was  obHged  to 
inform  the  anxious  cabinet  in  Paris  that  the  French  army 
was  so  imperfectly  equipped  for  the  conflict  that  any 
humiHations  would  have  to  be  endured.  Nor  is  it 
easy  for  even  the  tried  patriotism  of  French  officers  to 
obliterate  the  memory  of  the  many  scandals  which  have 
clouded  the  mihtary  history  of  the  third  republic.  To 
all  of  this  the  Germans  opposed  a  discipline,  semi-feudal 
and  brutal  at  times,  but  based  in  the  last  instance  on  a 

^The  figures  cited  cover  the  conscript-levy  of  1908. 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  15 

feeling  of  personal  honor  and  appealing  to  the  sentiment 
of  duty  to  the  Fatherland,  which  pervades  and  ennobles 
the  entire  German  military  system. 

After  the  fall  of  Bismarck  in  1890  a  change  for  the  better 
came  over  Franco-German  relations.  The  foreign  policy 
of  the  repubhc  seemed  lamed  for  a  long  time  to  come 
through  the  Panama  and  Dreyfus  scandals,  and  Wilham 
II,  who  had  forced  Bismarck  from  the  Chancellor's  table, 
adopted  a  more  conciliatory  policy.  The  young  emperor 
is  said  to  have  visited  Paris  as  a  youth  and  felt  the  charm 
of  French  brilhancy  and  dash.  From  being  the  Bellona 
of  Europe  the  nation  of  gallant  men  and  charming  women 
seemed  content  to  become  the  arbiter  of  taste  and  fashion. 
A  continually  rising  stream  of  German  visitors  found  its 
way  to  Paris  and  reached  its  height  at  the  Exposition  of 
1900,  when  German  manufacturers,  artists  and  scholars 
swarmed  everywhere  and  were  received  with  true  Gallic 
grace  and  hospitaUty.  The  Franco-Russian  AUiance 
seemed  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  Triple  Alhance, 
which  had  knit  together  the  central  European  powers 
for  twenty  years.  With  the  dimming  of  memories  of  the 
war,  such  incidents  as  the  annual  Sedan  festival,  which 
the  Germans  held  on  September  2,  with  its  oratorical 
outbursts  of  Teutonic  fury,  grew  less  intense.  The  peace 
program  of  WilUam  II  seemed  to  have  won  the  French 
heart. 

That,  however,  Sedan  was  not  forgotten,  on  either  side 
of  the  boundary,  was  soon  to  be  apparent.  The  drawing 
together  was  only  superficial,  and  it  needed  but  the  rub- 
bing of  counter-interests  in  North  Africa  to  make  it  plain 
that  the  old  wound  was  still  raw  and  bleeding.  The 
immediate  cause  of  the  rupture  of  friendly  relations  lay 
in  the  fact  that  German  diplomacy  had  found  it  almost 
impossible  to  keep  pace  with  the  demands  which  Ger- 
many's phenomenal  growth  made  upon  it.  The  colonial 
expansion  of  France,  which  began  in  1881  under  Ferry, 
met  at  first  with  something  like  benevolent  approval  in 


1 6     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Berlin,  where  it  was  hoped  that  Gallic  energy  would 
find  a  new  outlet  in  China  and  Africa  and  cease  to  "stare 
hypnotized  at  the  gap  in  the  Vosges."  In  the  chan- 
celleries of  Europe  it  was  practically  conceded  that 
France,  which  had  at  last  subjugated  Algeria  and  since 
1881  exercised  a  close  protectorate  over  Tunis,  would 
sooner  or  later  bring  the  restless  tribesmen  of  Morocco 
under  its  sway.  England  might,  it  was  supposed,  re- 
sist an  effort  to  endanger  its  route  to  India  or  its  position 
in  the  Mediterranean,  and  Spain  would,  when  the  time 
came,  enforce  its  claims,  but  it  was  not  considered  that 
Germany  had  any  claims  whatever.  With  the  end  of 
the  century,  however,  the  problem  of  finding  an  outlet 
for  German  emigration  and  expansion  in  a  temperate 
chmate  had  begun  to  be  acute.  German  merchants  and 
capital  had  penetrated  Morocco,  on  a  much  smaller 
scale,  it  is  true,  than  English  and  French,  but  made 
up  in  aggressiveness  what  was  lacking  in  quantity.  At 
home  loud  voices,  not  merely  those  of  Pan- German  agi- 
tators, began  to  demand  that  the  rich  sultanate  should 
not  be  disposed  of  without  consulting  Germany.  When 
in  1904,  as  a  result  of  an  agreement  between  France  and 
England,  the  former  received  a  free  hand  in  Morocco  in 
return  for  the  resignation  of  all  claims  in  Egypt,  German 
pride  was  cut  at  the  coolness  with  which  the  richest  part 
of  the  barbarian  world  still  "unprotected,"  right  at  the 
gates  of  Europe,  was  given  away  without  even  a  "by 
your  leave"  to  the  greatest  military  power  on  the  Con- 
tinent. 

The  events  of  the  Morocco  crisis,  involving  at  first 
chiefly  France  and  Germany,  soon  drew  in  all  of  the  Euro- 
pean powers.  They  are  briefly  recalled  here  because  they 
throw  a  strong  Hght  on  Franco-German  relations  three 
years  before  the  final  rupture  and  no  less  on  the  some- 
what uncertain  and  erratic  nature  of  German  diplomatic 
methods  in  the  decade  preceding  the  outbreak  of  war. 
On  March  31,  1905,  Emperor  William  made  an  unex- 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  17 

pected  and  spectacular  appearance  in  the  harbor  of  Tan- 
gier, where  he  assured  German  residents  of  the  protection 
of  the  Fatherland.  Immediately  afterwards  the  Berlin 
government  declared  itself  unwilling  to  accept  the  Anglo- 
French  agreement,  and  demanded  a  conference  of  the 
powers  to  settle  the  status  of  the  sultanate,  following 
up  its  demand  with  a  persistence  which  was  explainable, 
but  which  was  unfortunately  accompanied  by  violent 
talk  from  the  jingo  press,  only  too  reminiscent  of  the 
"sabre-rattling"  policy  that  Bismarck  occasionally  used 
with  such  skill  against  France.  Delcasse,  France's 
adroit  foreign  minister,  who  had  negotiated  the  arrange- 
ment with  England  and  warmed  it  into  an  entente,  de- 
clared that  the  Germans  were  bluffing,  but  once  more 
France  was  in  the  midst  of  changes  of  armament  which 
rendered  her  unprepared  for  war,  and  the  lawyers  and 
business  men  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  sacrificed 
Delcasse  and  accepted  the  conference.  From  the  con- 
ference of  Algeciras  German  diplomats  emerged  greatly 
disappointed.  Its  net  result  was  a  much  closer  alignment 
of  England  with  the  Franco-Russian  alliance  and  a  weak- 
ening of  Italy  in  its  support  of  Germany  that  shook  pubhc 
confidence  in  the  Triple  Alliance.  Only  Austria  stood 
fast  by  her  old  ally.  The  integrity  of  Morocco  was 
mildly  endorsed,  France  and  Spain  receiving  special 
privileges  in  the  matter  of  policing. 

It  was  clear  that  Germany  could  not  recede  from  her 
position  without  some  compensation,  and  the  affair 
remained  a  source  of  irritation.  This  showed  itself  at 
Casablanca  in  northern  Morocco  in  September  1908, 
over  a  matter  which  had  on  other  occasions  led  to  bitter 
feeling  in  Germany,  the  arrest  of  German  deserters  from 
the  French  Foreign  Legion,  In  February  of  the  follow- 
ing year  an  arrangement  was  concluded  between  Ger- 
many and  France  which  while  guaranteeing  the  integrity 
of  Morocco  and  insuring  for  Germany  an  absolutely 
open  door  for  trade,  conceded  to  France  predominating 


1 8     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

political  influence  in  the  sultanate.  An  honest  effort 
had  been  made  to  settle  the  matter  in  this  agreement,  but 
diplomacy  could  not  foresee  the  future,  and  another  crisis 
came  very  speedily.  The  recurrence  of  internal  troubles 
in  Morocco  led  to  the  French  march  on  Fez  in  May  and 
June  191 1,  and  it  soon  became  clear  that  the  absolute 
dependence  of  the  Sultan  on  French  arms  to  maintain 
any  order  whatever  among  the  unruly  tribesmen  would 
lead  to  a  long,  if  not  a  permanent,  occupation.  German 
journals  ran  the  whole  gamut  from  mild  protest  to  bitter 
arraignment  of  Gallic  lack  of  faith;  the  Paris  press 
breathed  a  half-restrained  defiance.  When  on  July  2, 
191 1,  the  German  cruiser  Panther  dropped  anchor  in  the 
splendid  but  httle  known  harbor  of  Agadir,  the  crisis 
reached  an  acute  stage. 

The  negotiations  which  filled  the  summer  and  fall  of 
191 1  were  embittered  by  the  entry  of  Great  Britain  into 
the  controversy.  As  usual  when  Franco-German  re- 
lations were  agitated,  the  conversations  of  the  diplomats, 
Jules  Cambon  and  Kiderlen-Wachter,  were  accompanied 
by  a  chorus  of  misstatements  and  braggadocio  in  the 
journals  of  Paris  and  Berlin.  The  sad  part  of  it  was  that 
in  this  affair,  which  brought  three  great  nations,  stand- 
ing at  the  apex  of  culture,  to  the  brink  of  war,  the  ques- 
tion of  the  rights  of  the  Mohammedan  inhabitants  of 
Morocco  was  never  raised  at  all.  All  parties  were  merely 
fired  by  a  selfish  desire  for  national  profit.  The  whole 
Morocco  affair  being  without  any  ethical  basis  whatever, 
simply  resolved  itself  into  a  matter  of  bargain,  the  out- 
break of  the  latent  hatred  of  England  among  popular 
circles  in  Germany  furnishing  the  only  element  of  na- 
tional enthusiasm.  Whatever  the  mistakes  of  German 
diplomacy,  the  impartial  observer  cannot  deny  that 
German  prestige  would  have  suffered  greatly  if  France 
had  been  permitted  without  protest  to  extend  her  power 
over  Morocco.  Nor  can  any  one  doubt  that  this  is  just 
what  she  had  determined  to  do,  exactly  as  she  herself 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  19 

had  done  thirty  years  before  in  Tunis,  as  England  had 
done  in  Egypt,  and  as  Italy  was  even  then  preparing  to 
do  in  Tripoli.  In  spite  of  popular  excitement,  diplomacy 
triumphed,  and  the  treaty  of  November  4,  191 1,  put 
Morocco,  excepting  such  portions  as  should  fall  to  Spain, 
forever  under  the  control  of  France,  awarding  Germany 
more  than  100,000  square  miles  of  the  French  Congo  as 
compensation.  The  bitter  dissatisfaction  of  both  sides 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  so  far  as  Germany  and 
France  were  concerned,  the  bargain  was  a  fair  one, 
although  the  investigation  of  the  German  Colonial  Office 
in  191 2  disclosed  that  the  acquired  region.  New  Kamerun, 
while  probably  rich  in  lumber  and  rubber,  was  so  com- 
pletely a  prey  to  the  sleeping  sickness  and  other  Central 
African  torments  that  its  exploitation  would  be  exceed- 
ingly difficult.  As  an  element  of  international  misunder- 
standing Morocco  was  out  of  the  way ;  as  a  symptom  of 
Franco-German  feeling  the  entire  Morocco  affair  showed 
how  little  progress  had  been  made  toward  a  mutual 
understanding  and  what  a  gulf  of  mistrust  still  separated 
these  two  leaders  of  modern  civilization. 

Morocco,  however,  had  been  removed  as  a  source  of 
irritation  and  that  was  felt  as  a  gain  on  both  sides.  Un- 
der clearing  skies  it  seemed  that  France  and  Germany 
might  enter  upon  one  of  those  periods  like  that  in  the 
nineties  of  the  last  century,  when  their  relations,  although 
not  exactly  friendly,  were  nevertheless  upon  a  workable 
basis.  Many  Frenchmen  and  many  Germans  hoped 
so ;  and  in  spite  of  the  train  of  forces  set  in  motion  by 
Italy's  attack  on  Turkey's  North  African  possessions  in 
191 1,  hopefulness  continued.  At  the  London  Confer- 
ence in  191 3,  which  settled  the  Balkan  chaos,  French  and 
German  diplomats  discovered  no  points  of  irritation ; 
indeed,  while  Germany  sought  to  render  Austria's  de- 
mands for  an  independent  Albania  less  peremptory, 
France  tried  to  restrain  her  ally  Russia  from  uncondi- 
tional support  of  Serbia's  demands  for  an  opening  to 


20     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

the  Adriatic.  But  after  the  Balkan  crisis  seemed  to  have 
passed,  the  deep  distrust  still  remained.  The  German 
Defense  Bill  of  191 3  and  the  French  Three  Years  Service 
Law  were  greeted  with  bitter  criticism  by  the  press  on 
the  opposite  sides  of  the  Vosges.  Each  nation  regarded 
itself  as  the  direct  object  of  the  other's  armament,  and  it 
was  evident  that  the  correct  and  even  conciliatory  atti- 
tude of  ministries  and  diplomats  would  give  way  to  a 
dangerous  tension  the  moment  any  object  of  dispute 
arose.  It  was  evident  too  that  the  tone  of  public  opinion 
on  neither  side  had  changed,  and  that  the  alliances  by 
which  both  nations  had  sought  to  strengthen  themselves 
in  eastern  Europe  would  draw  both  into  the  vortex  the 
moment  the  unstable  equilibrium  of  the  Balkans  should 
end  in  a  crash. 

"In  the  end  we  must  pay  for  the  windows  which  our 
journahsts  break. ' '  This  oft-quoted  remark  of  Bismarck's 
has  appHed  pecuharly  to  Germany's  relations  to  France. 
The  causes  of  the  violence  and  irresponsibility  of  a  cer- 
tain section  of  the  German  chauvinistic  press  will  be 
taken  up  in  a  later  chapter ;  here  it  is  merely  to  be  noted 
that  this  irresponsibility  and  violence  bore  especially 
evil  fruit  in  Franco-German  relations.  The  French 
press  has  its  own  peculiar  sins  to  answer  for  and  they 
are  not  light  ones  either,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  chapter 
on  Alsace-Lorraine.  But  something  may  be  said  in 
excuse  of  the  humiliated  antagonist,  smarting  with  a 
sense  of  powerlessness  which  had  grown  constantly 
more  acute  through  the  passing  years.  Certainly  much 
may  also  be  said  in  justification  of  German  distrust  of 
French  intentions  and  watchfulness  lest  an  unfavorable 
international  conjuncture  might  find  the  empire  sur- 
prised by  an  effort  to  win  back  Alsace  and  Lorraine, 
which  the  German  sincerely  beheved  to  be  his  by  every 
law  human  and  divine.  It  has  long  been  evident  that  any 
better  understanding  between  Germany  and  France 
must  rest  not  on  the  approaches  of  rulers  and  puppet 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  21 

statesmen,  but  on  something  like_  a  xeyolution  in  the 
thought  of  the  people  themselves,  and  in  such  a  revo- 
lution the  public  press,  the  nation's  schoolmaster  in  po- 
Htical  affairs,  must  play  an  important  part.  For  this 
reason  it  is  regrettable  that  the  German  press  beginning 
with  the  early  nineties  assumed  an  attitude  of  con- 
tempt toward  the  republic  that  not  only  fanned  into 
flame  a  keen  feeling  of  resentment  west  of  the  Vosges 
but  also  grievously  misled  the  Germans  as  to  the  nature 
and  tendencies  of  their  western  neighbors.  The  papers 
which  in  the  seventies  sounded  the  long  roll  at  every 
sign  of  France's  regeneration  began  later  to  picture  the 
republic  as  a  decrepit  antagonist  which  the  empire 
could  crush  into  humiliation  at  any  convenient  time. 
The  shadow  sides  of  Parisian  Hfe,  the  "depopulation 
problem"  in  France,  the  all-too-frequent  scandals  in 
French  public  and  private  Hfe,  the  sordid  phases  of 
French  literature  and  art,  —  all  were  exploited  in  certain 
journals  of  Berlin  and  the  lesser  capitals,  presenting  in 
their  composite  to  the  German  reader  the  picture  of 
France  as  a  degenerate  nation.  The  effect  of  all  this 
on  the  national  attitude  must  not  be  underestimated. 
It  bred  among  the  rank  and  file  of  the  German  middle 
and  lower  classes  the  feehng  that  France  was  wormeaten 
and  ripe  for  destruction  before  the  healthy  battaUons 
of  the  Fatherland.  That  these  ideas  were  not  shared 
by  well-informed  Germans,  is  a  matter  of  course ; 
still  less  was  the  general  staff  in  Berlin  ignorant  that 
even  with  Germany's  tremendous  accession  of  strength, 
France's  powers  of  resistance  were  many  times  greater 
than  in  1870.  It  is  a  fact  though  that  there  gradually 
took  possession  even  of  cultured  circles  a  conviction  of 
French  weakness  and  degeneracy  and  that  feelings  of 
this  kind  have  an  important  influence  on  the  creation  of 
just  such  waves  of  war  sentiment  as  ran  through  western 
Germany  in  the  summer  of  191 1.  "In  two  weeks  we 
shall  be  in  Paris,"  was  commonly  heard  in  hotels  and  on 


22     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

railroad  trains  in  the  Rhine  and  Moselle  country,  and 
after  the  formation  of  the  Triple  Entente,  metropolitan 
and  provincial  papers  frequently  assured  their  readers 
that  France  would  have  to  pay  for  all  of  the  windows 
that  England  might  break. 

If  the  idea  of  an  easy  conquest  of  France,  so  long 
disseminated  by  a  certain  section  of  the  German  press, 
facilitated  the  creation  of  a  war  spirit  to  the  east  of  the 
Vosges,  it  is  not  surprising  also  that  the  extravagant 
programs  set  forth  by  Pan-Germanists  produced  a  feel- 
ing of  extreme  nervousness  in  France.  At  such  times  as 
the  Morocco  crises  one  might  read  even  in  journals  of 
standing  that  the  annexation  of  Champagne  or  Franche 
Comte  was  one  of  the  aims  of  German  expansion,  or  hear 
that  high  financiers  had  demanded  of  the  government 
the  acquisition  of  maritime  rights  in  Brest  or  some 
southern  French  port  as  unconditionally  necessary  for 
the  development  of  Germany.  Such  things  were  in 
their  turn  taken  up  and  diligently  exploited  and  bitterly 
glossarized  by  the  more  hectic  Paris  journals.  The 
vigorous  tone  of  German  diplomacy,  which  retained  the 
dictatorial  ring  of  Bismarck's  day,  made  even  just  con- 
cessions difficult  for  French  statesmen.  Thus  while 
Germans  felt  that  France  waited  only  for  a  favorable 
international  conjuncture  to  undertake  the  recovery  of 
the  lost  provinces,  there  grew  up  among  Frenchmen  the 
feeling  that  Germany  was  determined  sooner  or  later  to 
bring  French  honor  to  bay  and  that  further  concessions 
and  humiliations  might  delay  but  could  not  avert  a 
conflict. 

In  the  history  of  the  past  century  there  is  no  sadder 
or  more  discouraging  spectacle  for  the  student  of  civiliza- 
tion than  that  offered  by  France  and  Germany.  The 
conflicts  between  the  Germanic  and  the  Romance  world, 
which  have  flowed  unceasingly  back  and  forth  across 
the  Vosges  and  up  and  down  the  Moselle  and  the  Meuse, 
left  an  inheritance  of  hate  and  distrust  which  all  of  the 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  23 

progress  of  civilization  has  only  intensified  and  em- 
bittered ;  and  one  must  search  history  carefully  indeed 
to  find  in  modern  times  an  instance  where  two  nations 
standing  at  the  forefront  in  the  arts  of  peace  have  faced 
each  other  for  so  long  a  period  ready  for  instant  war. 
Increasingly  for  more  than  forty  years  Metz,  Verdun, 
Strasburg,  Toul  and  Belfort  bristled  with  war  material. 
Feverishly  year  after  year  the  French  engineers  planned 
and  replanned  defences  for  the  great  highway  that  leads 
past  Mars  la  Tour  into  the  heart  of  Lorraine.  The  tour- 
ist who  descended  into  the  death  gorge  of  Gravelotte  or 
wandered  over  the  hills  to  St.  Privat  or  Vionville,  where 
since  1870  thousands  of  Germans  and  Frenchmen  lie 
buried  under  the  wheatfields,  was  always  under  the 
glasses  of  the  sentries  at  Point  du  Jour  and  the  other 
forts  crowning  the  wooded  heights  around  Metz.  The 
political  crises  which  have  been  recalled  above,  1887, 
1905  and  191 1,  were  reflected  by  an  access  of  watchful- 
ness on  the  border.  A  panic  of  spies  filled  the  air,  dis- 
trust and  fear  were  apparent  to  the  most  unobserving 
traveller.  Nominally  the  two  nations  were  at  peace, 
but  actually  the  conditions  were  almost  those  of  war. 
To  those  who  know  the  peace-loving  nature  of  the  in- 
dividual Frenchman  or  German  such  a  situation  seems 
monstrous.  Its  existence  could  only  be  explained  by 
the  feehng  of  distrust  which  had  become  chronic  in 
Franco-German  affairs,  a  distrust  founded  on  centuries 
of  French  interference  and  aggression  and  refounded 
upon  a  great  humiliation  imposed  upon  France  and 
forty  succeeding  years  of  humiliation. 

Despite  political  rivalry  and  popular  distrust  there 
have  been  features  in  the  relations  between  Germany 
and  France  which  gave  and  still  give  hope  and  encourage- 
ment. Intercourse  in  trade  and  business  constantly 
growing  brought  a  growing  recognition  on  both  sides 
of  the  supplementary  qualities  which  each  possesses  in 
the  field  of  business  undertaking.     German  method  and 


24     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

thoroughness  have  taught  much  to  French  scientific 
men  in  recent  decades,  and  the  pubhcation  of  works 
Hke  those  of  Henri  Lichtenberger  testifies  to  an  interest 
in  German  thought  such  as  was  unknown  in  France  be- 
fore the  end  of  the  last  century.  Political  rivalry,  like 
war,  speeds  the  interchange  of  cultural  influences,  and  in 
the  forty-odd  years  between  peace  and  war  Germany, 
which  through  the  centuries  had  always  been  the  borrower, 
began  to  repay  to  France  a  part  of  the  intellectual  debt 
of  former  times.  Indeed,  the  conquest  by  German  phi- 
losophy, science  and  music  was  so  complete  that  it  may 
be  said  of  the  average  cultured  Frenchman  of  the  twen- 
tieth century,  —  something  that  was  certainly  never 
true  of  any  generation  of  his  ancestors,  —  that  he  is 
more  at  home  in  the  intellectual  world  of  Germany  and 
more  capable  of  appreciating  German  character  than  the 
German  is  of  entering  into  the  peculiar  soul-world  of  the 
French. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  has  never  been  a  time  when 
GalUc  dash  and  energy  were  more  admired  in  Germany, 
even  in  the  days  of  Frederick  the  Great,  when  every 
German  princeHng  aped  the  vices  of  Versailles  and  every 
shopkeeper  on  the  Rhine  greeted  his  neighbor  with  Bon 
jour!  Massenet  and  Debussy  won  their  way  slowly 
in  spite  of  German  musical  aloofness,  and  the  inroads 
of  French  art  on  the  German  market  caused  in  191 1 
the  formation  of  a  defensive  league.  The  rivalry  with 
England  had  at  last  begun  to  undermine  the  old  feeHng 
of  hostility  to  France;  convinced  of  French  weakness, 
the  Germans  gave  rein  again  to  their  natural  admiration 
for  French  brilliancy  and  taste.  In  191 1  and  191 2  and 
1913,  writers  like  Maximihan  Harden  of  the  Berhn 
Zukunft,  who  felt  that  in  permitting  the  formation  of  the 
Triple  Entente  German  diplomats  had  allowed  Bis- 
marck's worst  nightmare  to  become  a  reality,  began  to 
call  loudly  for  an  attempt  to  win  the  friendship  of  the 
nation  to  which  German  culture  owes  so  much.     Un- 


THE  FRENCH  MORTGAGE  25 

fortunately  the  bonds  of  culture  do  not  guarantee  peace ; 
but  even  in  the  present  stage  of  human  infirmity  they 
can  do  something  to  create  conditions  favorable  to  it. 
French  and  German  scholars  have  met  in  ever  increasing 
numbers  at  learned  congresses;  French  and  German 
sportsmen,  who  learned  to  know  each  other's  quahties 
on  many  fields,  could  not  part  save  with  feelings  of 
mutual  admiration.  The  exchange  of  teachers  between 
the  French  and  Prussian  ministries  of  education,  carried 
on  with  much  more  enthusiasm  on  the  German  side,  it 
is  true,  did  its  part  to  cultivate  a  better  knowledge  of  the 
neighbor.  These  influences,  although  interrupted  by 
war,  will  in  the  end  do  much  to  weave  forgetfulness  over 
the  bitter,  bloody  work  of  the  past  and  present  and  to 
lay  the  foundation  for  the  mutual  understanding  which 
is  the  hope  of  the  future. 


CHAPTER  II 

Allies  and  Enemies  to  the  East 

"The  question  at  issue  is  decided,  now  it  is  our  duty 
to  bring  back  the  old  friendship  with  Austria."  This 
far-seeing  remark  of  Bismarck's  immediately  after  the 
Prussian  legions  had  overwhelmed  the  Austrian  forces 
at  Sadowa  in  1866  gave  the  keynote  to  his  poUcy  toward 
Prussia's  eastern  neighbor  and  ancient  rival.  This 
policy  he  carried  through  only  after  a  bitter  struggle 
with  Crown  Prince  Frederick  and  the  victorious  generals 
who  had  humbled  the  Habsburg  eagles.  It  was  a  clear 
vision  of  the  life-necessity  for  a  good  understanding 
between  the  two  great  powers  of  central  Europe  that 
made  the  Chancellor  offer  almost  the  same  terms  when 
on  a  victorious  march  on  Vienna,  as  had  been  contained 
in  the  Prussian  ultimatum  at  the  beginning  of  the  war, 
and  the  desire  to  pave  the  way  for  a  peace  without 
heartburnings  on  Austria's  side  made  him  deny  to  the 
impatient  war  lords  the  satisfaction  of  leadiiig  their 
legions  in  triumph  through  the  Danube  capital.  Prus- 
sian generosity  was  rewarded  by  Austria's  neutrality  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  war  with  France,  a  neutrahty  which 
was  persistently  upheld  by  the  Emperor  Francis  Joseph 
and  the  Hungarian  statesmen  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts 
of  the  Austrian  foreign  minister  Beust,  who  had  worked 
for  years  to  girdle  Prussia  about  with  a  league  between 
Austria,  Italy  and  France. 

In  spite  of  Prussia's  generosity  and  the  friendship 
between  the  Habsburg  and  HohenzoUern  dynasties,  the 
league   which   binds   polyglot   Austria   with   Germany 

26 


ALLIES  AND  ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  27 

would  never  have  sustained  the  wear  of  a  generation 
were  it  not  riveted  by  a  constant  common  danger,  the 
danger  of  a  union  of  Slavic  interests  under  the  leader- 
ship of  Russia.  The  fear  of  such  a  union  looms  now 
large  now  small  on  the  horizon  of  eastern  Europe ;  and 
while  keeping  strong  the  bond  which  unites  the  Germans 
of  Austria  to  their  brother  Germans  of  the  west,  it  has 
also  since  the  end  of  the  seventies  cemented  the  old 
union  between  the  Magyars  of  Hungary  and  the  German 
race  into  an  alliance  which  bids  fair  to  outlast  the  wear 
of  generations. 

Friendship  with  Russia  had  been  for  more  than  a 
century  a  tradition  of  the  Prussian  royal  family,  and 
Bismarck  found  it  easy  in  1872  to  bring  about  an  under- 
standing between  the  three  monarchs  of  autocratic 
tendencies,  — ■  the  Czar  Alexander  II  and  the  two  emper- 
ors, Francis  Joseph  and  William  I.  Undoubtedly  this 
"Three  Emperors'  Agreement"  rested  upon  a  solid  basis, 
a  common  sympathy  with  autocratic  institutions  and  a 
strong  family  friendship;  but  in  1872  the  days  of  the 
Holy  Alliance  were  irrevocably  past,  and  in  the  last 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  foreign  poHcies,  even 
in  Russia,  could  no  longer  be  determined  by  personal 
considerations,  when  these  collided  with  such  a  racial 
impulse  as  that  which  draws  North  Slavs  and  South 
Slavs  together. 

The  first  wedge  which  was  to  separate  Russia  and 
Germany  was  driven  in  1875.  In  that  year,  as  has  been 
shown  above  (page  6),  the  influence  of  adroit  French 
diplomacy  on  a  vain  despot  brought  about  the  inter- 
vention of  the  Czar  with  Emperor  William  in  favor  of 
France.  The  real  cleavage  came,  however,  in  the  fol- 
lowing year,  when  Russia  was  arming  for  her  advance 
on  the  Dardanelles  under  the  pretext  of  a  holy  crusade 
to  emancipate  the  South  Slavic  peoples  from  the  Turk, 
and,  as  before,  found  Austria-Hungary  in  her  path.  In 
answer  to  the  questions  of  the  Russian  foreign  ministry, 


28     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Bismarck  was  finally  obliged  to  declare,  after  long 
fidgeting  and  evasion,  that  in  the  event  of  a  war  between 
Austria  and  Russia,  Germany  would  refuse  to  sit  idly 
by  and  see  her  ancient  friend,  the  Danube  monarchy, 
bled  to  exhaustion.  At  the  Congress  of  Berlin  in  1878, 
which  marked  the  high  tide  of  Germany's  prestige  as  a 
neutral  power,  the  necessity  arose  of  choosing  clearly  and 
definitely  one  of  the  eastern  neighbors  as  an  ally.  At 
this  Congress  Russia  saw  herself  and  her  Slavic  con- 
federates stripped  one  by  one  of  the  fruits  of  Slavic 
victory,  while  Austria-Hungary  received  as  a  reward 
for  a  war  in  which  she  had  remained  neutral  the  right 
to  occupy  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  finally  winning 
these  two  splendid  Balkan  provinces,  with  their  97  per 
cent  of  Slavic  population,  with  a  sacrifice  of  scarcely  five 
thousand  officers  and  men.  After  this  it  was  impossible 
for  Bismarck  to  teeter  longer  between  the  two  rivals 
in  the  Balkans,  and  he  chose  as  ally  the  partly  blood- 
related  Austria-Hungary,  all  of  whose  interests  de- 
manded peace  and  the  maintenance  of  the  status  quo  in 
the  southeast.  The  alUance  concluded  in  1879  between 
Bismarck  and  the  far-sighted  Hungarian  statesman  An- 
drassy,  foreign  minister  of  the  Dual  Monarchy,  was  a 
defensive  league  against  the  great  Slavic  state  and  a 
wall  against  the  Slavic  advance  from  the  Baltic  to  the 
Bosphorus. 

While  the  fear  of  Russian  aggressions  drove  Germany 
and  Austria-Hungary  into  an  alliance  for  mutual  in- 
dependence and  defense,  it  was  the  attitude  of  France 
that  finally  brought  Italy  to  their  side  and  gave  rise 
to  the  Triple  Alliance.  United  Germany  and  united 
Italy  had,  in  a  measure,  undergone  their  baptism  of  fire 
together.  It  is  true  that  after  the  French  and  Italian 
forces  had  defeated  Austria  at  Solferino  in  1859  and  the 
whole  of  Venetia  lay  open  before  the  liberators,  Prussian 
diplomacy  stayed  the  hand  of  Napoleon  III  and  delayed 
for  seven  years  the  redemption  of  all  of  northern  Italy 


ALLIES  AND   ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  29 

from  the  Austrian  yoke.  But  when  emancipation  finally 
came,  it  came  through  Prussian  help.  As  early  as  1862 
Bismarck  sounded  the  court  at  Turin  as  to  what  its 
attitude  would  be  toward  a  joint  war  against  Austria, 
and  even  less  astute  statesmen  than  Cavour  foresaw 
that  henceforth  Itahan  and  Prussian  development  must 
go  hand  in  hand.  Thus  it  came  about  that  Prussia  and 
Italy  had  their  common  reckoning  with  the  Habsburg 
in  1866.  Italy  might  indeed  have  been  spared  this  war, 
had  Victor  Emmanuel  II  been  wilHng  to  accept  Venetia 
from  the  intermediary  hand  of  France  and  break  his 
plighted  word  to  Prussia.  The  gallant  king  refused,  and 
his  refusal  set  the  seal  on  German  and  Itahan  friendship 
for  a  generation. 

But  something  more  than  the  common  interest  with 
Prussia  was  necessary  to  bring  Italy  into  an  alHance 
which  included  the  ancestral  enemy  Austria.  That 
something  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  fear  of  France. 
Like  Germany,  Italy  began  her  united  national  exist- 
ence with  a  French  mortgage.  From  Charlemagne  to 
Napoleon  III  the  interference  of  France  had  been  a  con- 
stant obstacle  to  the  union  of  the  Itahan  states  and  the 
development  of  Itahan  interests.  Even  after  the  in- 
vasion of  France  by  German  troops  in  1870  had  recalled 
every  available  French  soldier  to  defend  his  native  land 
and  had  forced  Napoleon  to  leave  the  Pope  to  his  fate, 
opening  the  Porta  Pia  to  the  infantry  of  Savoy,  a  French 
warship  remained  in  the  harbor  of  Civita  Vecchia  ready 
to  rescue  the  Pope,  remained  there  indeed  till  1874,  when 
the  final  triumph  of  the  bourgeoisie  over  the  royahst  and 
clerical  parties  in  Paris  at  last  reheved  the  young  kingdom 
of  Italy  of  the  nightmare  of  a  war  with  France. 

The  French  gunboat  sailed  away,  but  left  in  Italy 
bitter  memories  of  generations  of  French  interference  in 
her  affairs.  The  hatred  which  these  engendered  was 
kindled  afresh  when  the  Itahan  national  spirit  found 
itself  checked  by  France  in  its  expansion  in  the  Mediter- 


30     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

ranean.  In  1881  France  spread  a  protectorate  over 
another  choice  morsel  of  the  disintegrating  Ottoman 
empire,  Tunis,  where  there  were  and  normally  are  twenty 
Italian  residents  to  one  Frenchman ;  and  Italy  realized 
that  only  through  an  alliance  with  the  great  mihtary 
powers  of  central  Europe  could  she  get  a  backing  v/hich 
would  protect  her  from  being  further  outflanked.  The 
next  year  Victor  Emmanuel  visited  Berhn,  where  he 
met  an  enthusiastic  reception  from  court  and  populace, 
and  very  soon  thereafter  the  conclusion  of  the  Triple 
AlUance  was  announced.  Italy  entered  it  without  en- 
thusiasm, but  with  a  very  clear  reahzation  of  the  benefits 
which  it  would  bring  to  her. 

The  Triple  AlHance  which  thus  came  into  being  was 
signed  originally  in  May  1882  for  a  period  of  five  years. 
It  was  renewed  in  1887  for  a  hke  period ;  and  then  in 
1891,  1902  and  1913,  the  last  time  for  five  years.  The 
league  between  Germany  and  Austria  had  bound  each 
of  these  powers  to  come  to  the  aid  of  the  other  in  case 
of  an  attack  by  Russia.  The  purpose  of  the  Triple 
Alliance  was  more  purely  defensive.  The  exact  terms 
of  the  treaty  were  not  published,  but  no  secret  was 
made  of  its  main  object.  It  guaranteed  to  the  three 
powers  mutual  assistance  in  maintaining  their  terri- 
tories ;  and  it  is  apparent  that  its  founders  had  in  mind 
an  insurance  on  Germany's  security  in  Alsace-Lorraine, 
Austria's  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  and  Italy's  in 
Rome.  With  the  changes  of  the  years  new  guarantees 
were  assumed,  emphasizing,  as  it  seemed,  the  defensive 
character  of  the  alliance.  Thus  Italy  secured  in  1902 
and  1 91 3  concessions  which  assured  to  her  compensation 
in  case  of  an  Austrian  advance  in  the  Balkans,  although 
the  Teutonic  powers  did  not  pledge  themselves  to  pro- 
tect the  peninsular  state  in  her  conquests  in  the  eastern 
Mediterranean.  Certain  it  is  that  the  advocates  of  the 
Triple  AlHance  did  not  claim  too  much  when  they  as- 
serted that  no  international  league  of  modern  times  has 


ALLIES  AND  ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  31 

been  more  productive  of  peace,  and  that  from  its  founda- 
tion in  1882  until  1914,  when  the  rivalry  of  Teuton  and 
Slav  in  the  Balkans  passed  beyond  restraint,  this  union 
between  the  Germanic  states  of  central  Europe  and 
Italy  acted  as  a  balance  wheel  in  every  European  crisis. 

Very  different  was  the  character  of  the  Austro-German 
agreement  of  1879,  which  Bismarck  published  to  all  the 
world  in  1888.  It  contained  from  the  beginning  the 
germs  of  war,  which  must  come  whenever  the  Russian 
advance  threatened  the  prestige  of  either  power.  It  was 
plain  from  the  first  that  the  danger  clouds  hung  in  the 
unruly  Balkans,  the  area  of  Austrian  and  Russian  rival- 
ries. Anything  in  the  strife  of  nationaUties  in  that 
troubled  zone  which  led  to  the  aggrandizement  of  the 
Slavic  states  must  find  Russia's  support  and  in  the  end 
check  Austria's  ambitions. 

For  a  time  the  wiliness  of  Bismarck  kept  Russia 
isolated  and  retained  the  Czar's  friendship.  "I  have 
thrown  a  bridge  across  to  Vienna  without  breaking 
down  the  older  one  to  St.  Petersburg,"  declared  the 
Iron  Chancellor  after  the  first  successful  approaches  to 
Austria  in  1872.  So  long  as  the  Bismarckian  tradition 
dominated  German  diplomacy,  this  continued  to  be  true. 
The  "Three  Emperors'  Agreement"  was  renewed  in  1884, 
and  in  1887  it  gave  place  to  an  understanding  between 
the  German  government  and  Czar  Alexander  III,  by 
which  each  agreed  to  remain  neutral  in  case  of  an  attack 
by  a  third  power,  a  form  of  ''reinsurance"  which 
Bismarck's  successor,  Caprivi,  who  was  a  soldier  and 
not  a  diplomat,  found  to  be  a  violation  of  loyalty  to 
Germany's  ally  Austria.  So  strongly  pro-Russian  were 
the  traditions  of  the  Prussian  royal  house  that  old 
Emperor  William  in  the  last  days  of  his  life  refused  to 
sanction  a  marriage  between  his  granddaughter  and  the 
abdicated  Prince  Alexander  of  Bulgaria,  otherwise  a 
most  desirable  match,  for  fear  of  hurting  Russian  sensi- 
bilities, and  report  says  that  the  aged  monarch  on  his 


32     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

deathbed  urged  his  grandson,  William  II,  to  maintain 
good  relations  with  the  Czar.  This  deference  to  the 
great  power  to  the  east  was  based  partly  on  a  fear  of  the 
Russian  mihtary  power,  a  feeling  inherited  from  the 
days  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  and  partly  no  doubt  on  a 
feeling  of  sympathy  entertained  by  the  autocratic  Ger- 
man ruler  for  Russian  absolutism.  Whatever  the  cause, 
it  could  not  withstand  the  march  of  events.  Bismarck 
had  been  clever  enough  to  keep  intact  the  league  with 
Austria  and  yet  prevent  Russia  from  joining  France; 
his  successor,  Caprivi,  a  stranger  to  the  more  devious 
ways  of  diplomacy,  found  the  task  beyond  his  powers, 
and  in  1891  the  strange  combination  between  the  auto- 
cratic C::ar  and  the  GalUc  repubUc  came  into  being  as 
a  counterpoise  to  the  Triple  Alliance.  The  exact  terms 
of  this  instrument  were  not  made  pubhc,  but  enough 
was  known  of  its  contents  to  make  it  certain  that  from 
the  first  it  was  directed  against  Germany.  It  gave 
France  a  support  which  she  needed  against  Germany's 
elbows,  and  in  this  way  contributed  for  two  decades  to 
European  peace.  Not  however  to  the  peace  of  Asia. 
The  Dual  Alliance  gave  Russia  access  to  the  well-filled 
savings  banks  of  France,  and  from  these  the  Czar's  gov- 
ernment drew  the  sinews  for  the  aggressive  advance  in 
the  Far  East  which  was  finally  hurled  back  by  Japanese 
bayonets  at  Port  Arthur  and  Mukden. 

The  formation  of  the  Franco-Russian  alliance  did  not 
at  first  bring  any  clouds  over  German  and  Russian  rela- 
tions. Prussia  is  the  only  state  in  Germany  which 
marches  with  the  territories  of  the  Czar,  and  the  in- 
fluential landed  nobiUty  of  Prussia  still  continued  to 
find  the  institutions  of  Russia  according  to  their  own 
feudal  tastes.  Under  these  reactionary  influences  the 
Prussian  government  often  stooped  to  do  police  duty 
for  the  ministers  of  Russian  tyranny.  Before  the  revolu- 
tion of  1905  Russian  consuls  in  the  German  university 
towns  maintained  a  spy  system  in  order  to  follow  up 


ALLIES  .\ND   EXE.MIES  TO  THE  EAST  33 

revolutionary  suspects  among  the  Russian  students,  and 
in  certain  Prussian  and  Saxon  cities  they  received  willing 
aid  from  the  police  authorities,  who  exercised  readily 
their  power  of  expulsion.  For  instance,  at  Russian 
social  gatherings  in  Leipsic  in  1900  and  1901  Russian 
student  friends  pointed  out  such  spies  to  me,  with  the 
assurance  that  a  word  to  the  poUce  from  one  of  these 
agents  was  all  that  was  necessary  in  order  to  have  the 
suspected  disciple  of  science  transported  immediately 
beyond  the  frontiers  of  Saxony.  During  and  after  the 
revolution,  when  the  closing  of  the  Russian  universities 
brought  increased  numbers  of  Slavic  students,  many  of 
Jewish  faith  and  many  with  very  slender  purses,  Prus- 
sian ministers  of  education  showed  by  their  treatment  of 
these  orphaned  children  of  the  muses  that  the  spirit  of 
the  Holy  Alhance  was  not  entirely  dead  in  Prussia. 

While  Prussian  officialdom  showed  its  sympathy  with 
the  Czar's  government  in  its  ruthless  methods  towards 
revolution,  in  the  decade  following  the  war  with  Japan 
a  very  general  change  took  place  in  the  attitude  of  the 
German  press  and  people  toward  Russia.  Whereas 
until  the  early  years  of  the  twentieth  century  the  Hohen- 
zollern-Bismarck  tradition  was  still  so  strong  that  every 
German  lad  seemed  to  feel  instinctively  the  necessity  for 
keeping  on  good  terms  with  the  powerful  neighbor  to  the 
east,  after  1905  a  tone  of  barely  disguised  contempt  crept 
more  and  more  into  press  and  public  speech.  The 
colossus,  whose  feet  of  clay  the  sturdy  Japanese  had  ex- 
posed, no  longer  inspired  dread ;  and  the  agitations  of 
this  mightiest  Slavic  people,  whose  poHtical  life  was  just 
passing  through  its  birth  throes,  were  watched  across 
the  Niemen  and  Vistula  with  something  very  like  mis- 
chievous joy. 

In  a  balance  so  nicely  adjusted  as  that  between  the 
European  powers,  Russia's  weakness  at  once  tipped 
dowTi  the  Teutonic-Magyar  arm  of  the  scale.  The 
benefits  of  this  change  were  reaped  almost  entirely  by 


34     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Austria;     Germany   garnered    nothing   but    Muscovite 
hatred,  sincere,  though  for  the  time  impotent.     When 
the  Triple  AlHance  was  formed,  Austro-Hungarian  states- 
men under  the  leadership  of  the  far-sighted  Andrassy 
acknowledged  definitely  and  finally  Prussia's  claim  to 
hegemony  in  the  Germanic  world  and  just  as  definitely 
and  finally  resigned  the  ancient  Habsburg  claim  to  rule 
in  the  Italian  peninsula.     This  did  not  mean,  however, 
that   the   aggressive   Habsburg   dynasty   gave   up    the 
family  tradition  of  aggrandizement  and  conquest,  but 
that  the  Dual  Monarchy  was  from  now  on  to  turn  its 
ambitions  toward  the  Balkans,  where  small  and  weak 
states   and   the   decaying  Turkish   empire   offered   less 
resistance  to  the  advance  of  Austrian  influence.     Here 
the  backing  of  the  first  military  power  of  Europe  armed 
Austrian  diplomacy  with  a  force  that  made  itself  felt 
more  and  more  from  the  Adriatic  to  the  Black  Sea  and 
enabled  Teuton  and  Magyar  for  a  generation  to  hold  in 
check  the  minor  Slavic  states  and  their  great  Slavic 
protector,   Russia.     In   1878   Bosnia   and   Herzegovina 
fell  under  Austrian  protection,  as  we  have  seen,  almost 
without  a  blow,  as  Austria's  spoil  from  the  Slavic  attack 
on  Turkey.     In   the  decades  that  followed   T,he  Dual 
Monarchy  proceeded  with  the  organization  of  these  two 
provinces  into  model  states,  drilUng  and  schooling  the 
population,  which  is  almost  entirely  Serb,  under  Teutonic 
and    Magyar    sergeants    and    schoolmasters.     In    1908 
Francis  Joseph's  government  seized  the  conjunction  of 
Russia's  weakness  and  the  revolution  in  Turkey  and 
declared  these  two  Balkan  states  annexed  forever  to 
Austria-Hungary.     Slavic  pride  was  stung  to  the  quick 
by  this  action:    Serbia  mobilized  and  Russia  began  to 
do  so ;   but  the  Berhn  government  stood  firmly  by  Ger- 
many's ally.     It  was  then  that  Kaiser  William  "showed 
himself  in  glittering  armor,"  to  quote  a  popular  expres- 
sion in  the  Berlin  papers  at  the  time,   and  certified 
Austria's  title  to  the  annexed  provinces  with  the  poten- 


ALLIES  AKD   ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  35 

tial  weight  of  Germany's  army  corps.  The  Russian 
general  staff  undoubtedly  felt  that  a  war  with  the  Ger- 
man-Austrian combination  could  have  but  one  ending, 
and  the  Czar  demobilized  and,  to  complete  his  humilia- 
tion, the  government  at  St.  Petersburg  was  obhged  to 
yield  to  a  suggestion  from  Vienna  via  Berlin  and  call 
off  Serbia.  The  Dual  Monarchy  pocketed  the  two 
provinces  and  defied  any  general  conference  of  the 
powers  to  question  her  title.  Furthermore,  Austrian 
influence  was  slowly  making  its  way  among  the  Christian 
Albanians  across  the  Turkish  frontier  through  the  es- 
tablishment of  ecclesiastical  schools  and  other  institu- 
tions; the  statesmen  of  Vienna  and  Budapest  were 
drawing  ever  tighter  the  ring  around  Serbia  and  were 
easily  able  to  hold  in  check  the  efforts  of  the  poet-warrior 
Nicholas,  king  of  tiny  Montenegro. 

Bismarck  once  declared  that  the  whole  Balkan  ques- 
tion was  not  worth  the  bones  of  a  single  Pomeranian 
grenadier.  To  him  the  Austro-German  alliance  was  an 
insurance  against  Russian  aggression  and  a  guarantee 
of  the  maintenance  of  the  status  quo  in  eastern  Europe. 
Irresistibly,  however,  the  centre  of  gravity  had  moved 
from  Berlin  to  Vienna,  and  every  readjustment  in  the 
Balkans  brought  Germany  in  the  train  of  Austria  more 
and  more  squarely  in  the  path  of  Russian  advance. 
Backed  by  Germany  the  Dual  Monarchy  had  won  the 
two  richest  provinces  in  the  Balkan  peninsula,  and 
through  the  same  backing  had  maintained  the  status 
quo  in  European  Turkey  and  prevented  Russia  from 
reaping  any  advantage  from  the  Turkish  revolution  of 
1908.  When  a  divergence  showed  itself  between 
Austria's  and  Italy's  plans  in  the  Balkans,  German 
sympathy  and  diplomacy  placed  itself  unhesitatingly 
upon  the  side  of  the  Teutonic  ally  and  assisted  in  beating 
off  any  combination  of  Italian  and  Russian  interests 
which  might  block  the  path  of  the  Dual  Monarchy  tow- 
ard the  southeast.    Thus  in  1906  the  Vienna  ministry, 


36     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

aided  by  Berlin,  was  able  to  checkmate  Russo-Italian 
plans  for  a  Transbalkan  Railway,  which  should  connect 
the  Adriatic  with  the  Danube,  by  preparing  to  carry  out 
a  counter  plan  to  drive  a  railroad  through  the  Sanjak 
of  Novibazar,  thus  connecting  Austria-Hungary's  Balkan 
provinces  and  Vienna  itself  with  Saloniki,  the  great 
gateway  of  trade  on  the  ^gean  and  the  Mecca  of  Habs- 
burg  hopes  in  the  southeast. 

When  in  191 2,  through  the  formation  of  the  league  of 
Balkan  states,  the  Dual  Monarchy  was  shut  off  from 
further  advance,  Germany  stood  faithfully  by  her  ally. 
With  her  backing,  Austria  faced  down  Russian  dissatis- 
faction and  blocked  Serbia's  way  to  the  Adriatic  by 
carving  out  the  kingdom  of  Albania,  for  which  Germany 
furnished  one  of  her  mediatized  princes,  William  of 
Wied,  as  ruler.  Once  more  the  Teutonic-Magyar  com- 
bination had  checked  the  Slavic  advance,  and  although 
the  expansion  of  Greece  and  Serbia  seemed  to  have  put 
an  end  to  Austria's  hopes  of  a  port  on  the  ^gean,  the 
Austrian  and  German  diplomats  rose  from  tht3  London 
Conference  of  1913  without  disappointment.  Once 
more  they  had  checked  the  Slav  in  his  march  to  blue 
water.  Once  more  the  big  brother  Russia  saw  his  little 
brothers  Serbia  and  Montenegro  shorn  of  the  most 
coveted  fruits  of  victory,  and  when  the  break-up  of  the 
Balkan  League  and  the  second  Balkan  War  followed 
in  the  summer  of  1913,  it  seemed  as  if  Austrian  intrigue 
and  the  weight  of  Germany's  legions  had  forced  back 
the  Slavic  wave  for  another  decade. 

In  the  meantime  the  BerHn  government  was  not 
ignorant  that  the  dragons'  teeth  which  it  had  sowed 
in  Russia  in  1908  and  again  in  191 2-13  had  sprung  up 
into  the  bitterest  hatred.  It  had  long  been  acutely 
sensitive  to  the  dangers  which  lurked  in  the  unruly 
Balkans,  and  for  this  reason  the  formation  of  the  Balkan 
League,  and  the  staggering  blows  which  it  gave  Turkey, 
caused  a  shock  in  Berlin  scarcely  less  unpleasant  than 


ALLIES  AND  ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  37 

in  Vienna.  The  fact  that  Austria  had  now  to  face  a 
strong  alliance  instead  of  several  weak  states  moved  the 
German  general  staff  to  quick  measures,  and  the  Defense 
Bill  above  referred  to  (page  iiff.)>  which  passed  the 
Reichstag  in  July  1913,  was  Germany's  anchor  to  the 
windward.  Before  its  passage,  however,  the  results  of 
the  London  Conference  and  the  events  in  the  Balkans 
had  relieved  the  pressure.  In  the  meantime  Russian 
journals  and  publicists  took  on  an  increasingly  bitter 
tone  toward  Germany,  and  the  reorganization  of  the 
Russian  army  after  the  Japanese  War  seemed  complete, 
while  it  was  well  known  that  the  Czar's  government 
was  busy  with  the  construction  of  strategic  railways 
in  the  western  borderlands.  Nevertheless  all  surfaces  of 
irritation  seemed  removed  for  the  present  and  the  watch 
on  the  Vistula  went  on  without  any  feeling  that  an  im- 
mediate settlement  of  the  age-old  rivalry  between  Teuton 
and  Slav  was  impending.  That  it  came  little  more 
than  a  year  after  the  adjournment  of  the  London  Con- 
ference was  due  directly  to  the  wide  differences  in  the 
whole  field  of  culture  and  civilization  which  separate 
Austria  from  her  southeastern  neighbors,  differences 
which  together  with  racial  and  religious  antagonisms 
have  made  the  Balkans  the  danger  zone  of  Europe. 
Here,  where  for  generations  every  European  crisis  has 
acted  as  an  irritant,  was  now  set  off  in  the  summer  of 
1914  an  explosion  which  turned  Bismarck's  great  league 
for  the  preservation  of  peace  into  one  for  the  dissemina- 
tion of  war.  In  the  fanatical  patriotism  of  the  Serbians 
lay  the  spark  which  was  to  end  Germany's  forty-three 
years  of  peace. 

It  was  not  merely  in  foreign  affairs  that  Germany's 
support  brought  for  so  many  years  security  to  Austria- 
Hungary.  It  likewise  gave  the  Dual  Monarchy  peace 
and  the  opportunity  of  development  within  its  borders. 
In  this  patchwork  of  races  the  Slavic  peoples  form  45 
per  cent  of  the  total  population,  and  the  history  of  latter- 


38     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

day  Austria  has  been  a  continuous  struggle  to  balance 
off  over  against  each  other  the  distracting  demands  of 
Czechs,  Moravians,  Poles,  Slovaks,  Croats,  Serbs,  Ru- 
thenians  and  Slovenes.  Facing  these  the  Germanic 
inhabitants  make  up  only  24  per  cent  of  Austria-Hungary 
or  35  per  cent  of  Austria.  Backed  by  the  alliance  with 
their  blood-relatives  to  the  west,  the  Austrian  Germans 
have  maintained  the  leadership  in  this  ethnic  crazy- 
quilt,  and  the  government  at  Vienna  has  found  itself 
free  to  treat  its  Slavic  subjects  with  energy  and  de- 
termination, without  the  fear  of  a  greater  Slavic  alliance 
under  the  leadership  of  Russia. 

Under  these  circumstances  the  Danube  state  went  for- 
ward to  a  point  where  universal  suffrage  and  the  conse- 
quent forcing  to  the  front  of  inner  social  questions,  such 
as  compulsory  workingmen's  insurance  and  the  secular- 
ization of  the  schools,  began  to  break  the  solida-rity  of 
the  "national"  parties,  whose  bitter  enmities  for  so 
many  years  disgraced  the  sessions  of  the  Reichsrath  and 
Austrian  public  life  generally.  Some  years  ago  it  was 
quite  commonly  said  that  the  death  of  Francis  Joseph 
would  bring  an  end  to  the  Dual  Monarchy  and  perhaps 
the  dissolution  of  Austria  itself;  with  the  grow  ;:h  of  the 
new  century,  however,  there  arose  a  feeling  of  optimism. 
It  seemed  certain  that  the  union  of  the  monarchies  and 
the  permanence  of  the  dynasty  were  guaranteed  so  long 
as  the  Teutonic  Austrians  and  the  Magyars  found  in 
the  alHance  with  Germany  a  guarantee  of  protection 
from  without  and  the  possibility  of  inner  development. 
Thus  it  happened  that  the  nine  and  one-half  million 
Germans  who  live  in  the  ancestral  Habsburg  lands,  — 
upper  and  lower  Austria,  Bohemia,  Styria  and  Tyrol, 
—  even  though  cut  off  by  the  national  boundary  posts 
from  their  Bavarian,  Saxon  and  Prussian  relatives,  were 
able  to  retain  the  leadership  in  this  heterogeneous  empire. 
They  had  lost  political  unity,  perhaps  forever,  with  the 
larger  body  of  the  German  race,  but  maintained  a  po- 


ALLIES  AND  ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  39 

litical  attachment  to  their  cousins  in  Germany  which  was 
able  to  keep  the  peace  in  Austria  in  spite  of  the  aggres- 
siveness of  the  Bohemian  Czechs  and  the  Galician  Poles 
and  the  Russian  cousins,  the  Ruthenians. 

Unquestionably  both  without  and  within  Austria 
took  much  more  than  she  could  give  in  the  alliance  with 
Germany.  Nevertheless  the  advantages  to  Germany 
were  significant.  Through  the  increase  of  Austria's 
prestige  in  the  Balkans  Germany  was  guaranteed  an 
open  door  for  her  trade,  not  merely  into  all  of  the  Balkan 
states  but  beyond  in  Asia  Minor  and  throughout  the 
eastern  Mediterranean.  And  while  after  Bismarck's 
day  the  aUiance  was  of  the  greatest  value  to  Germany 
in  making  her  independent  of  Russia,  it  also  assured  her 
freedom  to  proceed  with  the  aggressive  nationalizing  of 
her  own  Polish  subjects  without  the  danger  of  a  Slavic 
league  being  formed  against  her,  for  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten that  Germany  has  on  her  eastern  marches  nearly 
three  million  Poles  who  still  entertain  hopes  of  a  Greater 
Poland. 

The  two  strongest  military  powers  of  Europe,  the  one 
completely  German,  the  other  German  in  dynasty, 
military  traditions  and  leadership,  offered  without  further 
allies  a  counterbalance  to  the  whole  of  Slavic  and  Ro- 
mance Europe,  and  one  may  say  that  an  alliance  between 
them  was  and  is  really  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of 
European  peace.  Thus  in  spite  of  all  efforts  to  win  them 
away,  Austria-Hungary's  representatives  stood  by  Ger- 
many through  thick  and  thin  at  the  conference  of  Al- 
geciras  (page  17),  and  the  unbreakable  front  thus 
presented  enabled  the  Kaiser's  diplomats  to  face  a  ring 
of  hostile  powers  and  to  retire,  with  disappointed  hopes, 
it  is  true,  but  without  humiliation. 

It  is  clear  then  that  so  long  as  loyalty  is  one  of  the 
cardinal  virtues  of  the  German  soul,  the  Germans  of  the 
Empire  could  not  desert  the  Austrian  Germans  in  the 
face  of  an  attack  either  within  or  without   the  Dual 


40     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Monarchy.  The  march  of  affairs  in  the  Balkans  after 
the  Young  Turk  revolution  of  1908  brought  the  danger 
of  such  an  attack  constantly  closer.  The  enthusiasm 
for  a  Greater  Serbia,  rudely  checked  in  that  year,  had 
fed  large  upon  the  military  successes  of  the  two  Balkan 
wars  and  in  the  five  years  following  Austria's  annexa- 
tion of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  had  grown  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  It  had  long  before  jumped  the  boundaries  of 
the  Dual  Monarchy  and  burrowed  a  hundred  under- 
ground passages  of  revolution  from  Belgrade  into  the 
Serb  provinces  of  Austria.  In  1908  the  government  of 
King  Peter  had  made  a  promise,  underwritten  by  Russia, 
to  abstain  from  all  anti-Austrian  propaganda.  It  was 
a  promise  which  the  Belgrade  government  could  not 
and  the  Serbian  people  would  not  keep.  Twice,  in  191 2 
and  1 913,  the  Dual  Monarchy  had  mobilized  against 
Russia  and  Serbia ;  now  the  Vienna  ministry  saw  itself 
condemned  to  stand  always  on  guard  against  Serbian 
aggressions.  There  seemed  no  choice  save  betv^een  the 
continuance  of  a  maddening  condition  of  irritation,  with 
bankrupting  military  crises,  and  a  sharp  and  decisive 
war.  The  murder  of  the  Austrian  heir  apparent,  Francis 
Ferdinand,  on  June  22,  1914,  by  the  bomb  and  pistol  of 
two  fanatics  of  Sarajevo,  crazed  with  Serbian  racial 
patriotism,  supplied  the  trigger  action,  and  Austria's 
peaceful  mission  in  the  Balkans  was  at  an  end. 
/  The  present  generation  will  probably  never  know  just 
j  what  took  place  J^etween  the  courts  of  Vienna  and  Berlin 
in  July,  1 9 14.  It  is  idle  to  speculate  as  to  whether  Kaiser 
^illiam  and  his  advisers  really  beheved  that  Russia 
could  again  be  held  in  check  as  in  1908-09  and  191 2-13. 
The  character  of  the  Austrian  ultimatum  to  Serbia  of 
July  23,  1 914,  was  such  that  it  could  only  have  come 
from  those  who  had  made  up  their  minds  to  cut  once  for 
all  the  web  which  Russian  diplomacy  had  spun  about  the 
Dual  Monarchy  and  who  knew  that  the  help  of  the 
German  ally  could  be  reckoned  upon.    Those  who  have 


ALLIES  AND  ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  41 

observed  the  infinite  care  with  which  all  things  connected 
with  the  national  security  are  followed  up  in  Germany 
cannot  doubt  that  from  long  before  1908  the  last  eventual 
consequences  of  the  support  of  Germany's  ally  against 
the  South  Slavs  had  been  carefully  weighed  and  all  the 
risks  considered.  Whatever  desire  for  peace  was  felt  in 
BerKn  did  not  go  so  far  as  to  admit  the  possibiUty  of  the 
humihation  of  the  ally  on  the  Danube.  Whatever  the 
issue  of  the  conflict  was  to  be,  it  should  reheve  Austria 
from  the  nightmare  of  Slavic  pressure. 

While  stern  necessity  held  Germany  and  Austria- 
Hungary  together,  Italy's  adherence  was  felt  to  be  less 
necessary  and  her  position  was  by  no  means  so  consist- 
ent. She  had  entered  the  Triple  Alliance  to  protect 
herself  from  French  pressure.  When  with  the  fading  of 
monarchical  and  clerical  hopes  in  France,  this  pressure 
diminished,  there  sprang  up  a  strong  party  in  the  penin- 
sula which  looked  for  sympathy  and  support  to  Paris 
rather  than  to  BerHn  and  Vienna.  Like  the  great 
minister,  Crispi,  not  a  few  Italian  leaders  have  been 
men  of  repubHcan  training  and  sympathies,  to  whom 
French  republican  institutions  made  a  direct  appeal. 
Popular  sentiment  for  the  blood-related  Latin  nation 
beyond  the  Maritime  Alps  turned  strongly  on  various 
occasions  toward  a  league  with  the  republic.  England's 
friendship  too  had  always  been  eagerly  sought  by  Itahan 
statesmen  and  people ;  and  British  sympathy  and  gold 
were  ever  sponsors  for  Italy's  position  among  the  great 
powers.  To  many  great  EngHshmen,  indeed,  Italy  has 
been  a  second  homeland,  and  they  have  followed  the 
struggles  of  the  peninsular  state  with  something  more 
than  neutral  feeling.  EngHsh  and  French  naval  bases 
flank  the  Italian  coast,  while  Germany's  boundaries  no- 
where touch  Italy.  Austria,  on  the  other  hand,  having 
blocked  the  way  to  Itahan  unity  as  long  as  she  could, 
still  exerted  herself  to  suppress  every  movement  of  ra- 
cial patriotism  in  the  three-quarters  of  a  milUon  ItaUans 


42     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

on  the  northeastern  border  of  the  Adriatic  and  in  the 
valley  of  the  Adige.  In  the  face  of  such  conditions  it  is 
not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  Roman  cabinet,  striving 
to  build  up  a  national  consciousness  in  the  midst  of 
frightful  economic  difficulties  and  bitter  party  strife, 
followed  a  poHcy  in  international  affairs  which  was  often 
vacillating  and  often  selfish,  nor  can  one  blame  Italian 
statesmen  if,  as  the  Germans  declared,  their  position 
toward  the  northern  allies  was  that  of  those  who  take 
all  and  give  nothing  in  return. 

This  trend  of  events  reached  highwater  mark  with  the 
Algeciras  conference.  The  Triple  Alliance  had  become 
unpopular.  Italy  was  slowly  nursing  plans  for  an  attack 
on  the  Mohammedan  world,  and  Italian  statesmen  in- 
clined strongly  towards  an  understanding  with  the 
Anglo-French  entente.  How  far  this  understanding 
went  at  Algeciras  is  uncertain.  Italy's  opposition  to 
Germany's  proposals  was  more  negative  than  positive ; 
but  Germany,  facing  an  unsympathetic  world,  was  ex- 
tremely sensitive,  and  the  German  press  teemed  with 
the  bitterest  attacks  on  ItaUan  faithlessness.  After  the 
conference  the  opinion  was  general  that  the  Triple  Alli- 
ance was  doomed  to  dissolution  and  that  Italy  was  surely 
drifting  towards  the  Triple  Entente,  which  Anglo-French 
diplomacy  had  girdled  around  Germany. 

The  settlement  of  the  Morocco  question  in  the  fall  of 
191 1,  however,  brought  a  change.  Italian  policy  once 
more  veered  around.  With  a  suddenness  and  a  well- 
oiled  organization  that  took  the  chancelleries  of  Europe 
completely  by  surprise,  Italy  seized  TripoH,  with  this  one 
act  blocking  French  advance  toward  the  eastern  Mediter- 
ranean, placing  herself  astride  of  England's  route  to 
Egypt  and  India  and  giving  a  shock  to  Turkey  that  sent 
its  thrills  into  the  most  distant  valleys  of  Macedonia 
and  Asia  Minor.  The  first  news  of  this  move  echoed  in 
every  German  and  Austria-Hungarian  newspaper  in  a 
cry  of  outraged  amazement.     Germany  had  for  twenty 


ALLIES  AND  ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  43 

years  considered  herself  Turkey's  sponsor  in  Europe. 
Her  ofl&cers,  the  military  authority  Kolmar  von  der  Goltz 
at  their  head,  had  reorganized  Turkey's  army;  in  the 
day  of  Abdul  Hamid's  rule  her  statesmen  and  journals 
had  condoned  the  crimes  of  Islam's  religious  fanatics  in 
Cihcia  and  of  Turkish  political  leaders  in  Macedonia  and 
Albania.  Indeed,  in  those  days  of  misrule  before  the 
Young  Turk  revolution  of  1908  Germany  was  the  only 
civilized  land  that  seemed  utterly  deaf  to  the  cry  of 
distress  from  Armenian,  Cretan  and  Bulgar.  And  now 
after  such  championship  to  see  the  last  remaining  frag- 
ment of  Moslem  North  Africa  fall  to  Italy  brought  forth 
the  bitterest  attacks  from  journals  which  had  a  few 
months  before  been  eloquently  championing  Germany's 
right  to  acquire  southern  Morocco. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  ItaHans  did  not  turn  the 
other  cheek  to  the  smiter.  From  the  Alps  to  the  ;Maltese 
straits  the  old  hatred  of  the  Teuton  flamed  up  with  a 
truly  Guelphic  intensity.  Memories  of  Austrian  despot- 
ism in  Lombardy  and  Venetia,  slumbering  hghtly  be- 
neath half  a  century  of  independence,  sprang  into  life 
and  inspired  hundreds  of  pens,  from  Gabriel  d'xAnnunzio's 
to  that  of  the  humblest  pro\'incial  journaHst,  to  a  \-itriolic 
denunciation  of  German  hes  and  Austrian  treachery. 

Never  did  the  Triple  Alliance  prove  its  worth  for  Italy 
more  than  in  this  crisis,  when  the  rapidly  shifting  scene 
showed  that  the  danger  to  Italy's  forrv^ard  movement,  in 
so  far  as  it  concerned  the  IMediterranean,  lay  to  the  west- 
ward. A  series  of  irritating  incidents  which  occurred 
with  the  French  ships  carrying  contraband  made  clear 
once  more  that  the  strongest  opponent  to  Italy's  expan- 
sion was  to  be  found  in  the  same  power  which  since 
Richelieu's  day  has  considered  a  strong  and  united  Italy 
inconsistent  with  her  own  welfare.  Italian  statesmen 
anticipated  the  revulsion  of  popular  feeling  toward  the 
allied  state  to  the  north.  D'Annunzio's  vitriolic  ode 
was  suppressed,  too  violent  newspapers  restrained,  and 


44     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

the  interchange  of  diplomatic  \dsits  between  Berlin, 
Vienna  and  Rome  gave  assurance  that  the  three  govern- 
ments were  in  accord.  Italy  refrained  from  any  incite- 
ment of  the  Balkan  peoples,  and  the  war  moved  forward 
in  the  grooves  which  the  friendly  diplomacy  of  Austria 
had  marked  out.  In  the  Triple  AlUance  Italy  had  the 
strongest  guarantee  that  she  would  be  able  to  hold  her 
conquests  without  being  obliged  to  have  her  title  revised 
by  unfriendly  powers,  thus  fulfilling  the  prophetic  words 
of  the  Italian  statesman  Prinetti  on  the  renewal  of  the 
Alliance  in  1902  :  "If  ever  the  present  condition  of 
affairs  in  the  Mediterranean  is  disturbed,  Italy  will  be 
sure  of  finding  no  one  to  stand  in  the  way  of  her  just 
ambitions." 

A  league  of  peace  it  had  been  for  Italy  within  as  well 
as  without.  Had  it  not  been  for  this  anchor,  the  rivalry 
between  Italy  and  Austria  in  the  Adriatic  and  Albania 
might  early  in  the  twentieth  century  have  come  to  a 
decision  of  arms.  It  was  directly  due  to  the  lack  of 
aggressiveness  in  Italy's  leaders  in  1866  that  the  boun- 
daries of  their  kingdom  were  not  made  to  march  with  the 
JuUan  Alps,  and  that  the  continuance  of  an  Italia  Irri- 
denta  in  southern  Tyrol  and  on  the  Adriatic  remained  a 
sore  spot  to  Italian  patriots.  From  a  shore  almost  lack- 
ing in  ports  where  even  a  coasting  freighter  can  ride 
protected  the  Italian  mariner  looked  covetously  over  to  a 
splendid  succession  of  deepwater  harbors  from  Trieste  to 
Cattaro  in  Dalmatia,  the  historic  outlet  of  his  vigorous 
and  fertile  race.  Italians  as  residents  and  immigrants 
swarmed  along  the  Istrian  and  Dalmatian  coast,  and 
offered  a  perplexing  problem  to  Austrian  administration 
and  diplomacy.  Furthermore  Italy  sought  for  years  to 
extend  her  influence  in  Albania,  and  ItaHan  statesmen 
looked  forward  hopefully  to  a  time  when  their  country 
should  be  ready  to  extend  a  protectorate  over  the  south- 
ern districts  and  coast  of  this  rugged  land  This  of 
course  ran  directly  counter  to  the  plans  of  Austria,  which 


ALLIES  AND  ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  45 

for  many  years  had  sought  by  means  of  schools  and  re- 
ligious institutions  to  draw  the  Christian  inhabitants  of 
northern  Albania  directly  under  her  influence.  The 
marriage  of  King  Victor  Emmanuel  III  to  the  daughter  of 
the  doughty  warrior-poet,  King  Nicholas  of  INIontenegro 
increased  the  natural  sympathy  of  the  house  of  Savoy  and 
the  ItaUan  people  for  this  tiny  state,  which  had  become 
such  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  Austria,  and  which  with  a 
curious  mLxture  of  chivalry  and  barbarism  was  ever 
ready  to  dig  up  the  hatchet  afresh.  In  the  days  before 
the  Balkan  wars  of  191 2,  when  the  snow  melted  on  the 
Albanian  mountains  in  the  spring  and  the  bold  tribesmen 
saUied  forth  in  their  annual  campaign  against  Turkish 
misrule,  they  equipped  themselves  with  Italian  war 
tools,  brought  over  the  Montenegrin  mountains. 
'  In  these  ethnic  storms  the  Triple  AlHance  proved  a 
strong  anchor,  and  the  Balkan  wars  of  191 2  and  1913 
seemed  to  knit  Italy  more  firmly  than  ever  to  the  north- 
ern powers.  Whatever  her  rivalry  with  Austria,  Italy 
must  \dew  the  advent  of  an  aggressive  Slav  state  on  the 
opposite  shore  of  the  narrow  Adriatic  as  a  mortal  blow 
to  her  ambitions,  and  her  suspicion  of  the  Teuton  was 
forgotten  in  the  common  danger.  It  seemed  better  to 
surrender  forever  her  hopes  of  political  expansion  in 
Albania  and  the  Epirus  than  to  welcome  a  new  rival  to 
her  seas.  The  Italian  ambassador  joined  the  other 
representatives  of  the  Triple  Alhance  at  the  London 
conference  in  depri\'ing  Serbia  of  an  Adriatic  port  and 
in  forcing  the  Montenegrins  out  of  Scutari.  With 
Austria  Italy  stood  as  joint  sponsor  for  the  new  state 
Albania. 

Nevertheless,  neither  the  Italian  statesmen  nor  people 
ceased  for  a  moment  to  doubt  Austria's  intentions. 
Italian  warships  lay  off  Durazzo  as  interested  observers 
of  the  struggle  which  Prince  William  of  Wied  made  to 
maintain  himself  on  his  tottering  throne  against  the 
attacks  of  the  Moslem  Albanians.     Essad  Pasha,  the 


46     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

leader  of  the  Albanian  Mohammedans,  found  refuge  in 
Italy  after  his  expulsion  from  Durazzo ;  and  the  fact 
that  Prince  Wilham  had  to  fight  with  only  hired  troops 
and  a  few  adventurers,  while  Austria  forbade  the  re- 
cruiting of  troops  for  his  service  in  her  dominions,  pointed 
to  rigid  Italian  watchfulness.  Each  of  the  jealous 
powers  would  apparently  rather  see  anarchy  continue 
in  Albania  indefinitely  than  run  the  risk  of  permitting 
the  other  an  advantage. 

Another  result  of  the  Balkan  wars  which  made  the 
Triple  Alliance  of  the  greatest  importance  to  Italy 
was  the  rise  of  the  Greek  power.  The  Hellenic  king- 
dom was  shorn  of  her  conquests  in  the  Epirus  by  the 
London  diplomats,  with  Italy's  earnest  support.  Dur- 
ing the  war  with  Turkey  in  191 1  the  Italian  navy  had 
seized  twelve  of  the  Ionic  Islands,  the  southeastern 
Sporades,  which  under  the  treaty  of  Lausanne  were  to 
be  returned  to  Turkey  when  all  of  the  terms  of  peace  had 
been  compHed  with.  The  following  year  Greece  had  oc- 
cupied the  other  islands  of  the  ^gean  and  meant  to 
hold  them  if  possible.  The  islands  held  by  Italy, 
Hellenic  in  population  and  enthusiastically  Greek  in 
spirit,  yearned  to  come  under  the  Greek  flag.  More 
than  any  other  power  Greece  had  profited  by  the  Balkan 
wars,  and  it  was  apparent  that  any  further  growth  of  the 
Hellenic  spirit  might  easily  threaten  Italy's  position  in 
the  eastern  Mediterranean. 

Plainly  then  from  the  fall  of  191 1  to  the  summer  of 
1 914  the  support  of  the  Triple  Alliance  had  been  of  the 
greatest  possible  moral  help  to  Italy's  security  and  ad- 
vancement. However,  it  must  also  have  been  plain  to 
German  and  Austrian  statesmen  that,  judging  the 
future  by  the  past,  sic  rebus  stantibus  had  always  to  be 
underlined  by  those  dealing  with  the  peninsular  kingdom. 
Bismarck  once  said  that  all  contracts  between  great 
nations  cease  to  be  binding  when  they  clash  with  the 
struggle  for  existence.     Germany's  ministers  could  not 


ALLIES  AND  EXE:MIES  TO  THE  EAST  47 

fail  to  be  aware  that  while  Italy's  development  had  been 
made  with  the  backing  of  the  Triple  Alliance,  her  progress 
was  still  girt  by  such  dangers  on  every  side  that  her  very 
existence  as  a  state  might  be  threatened  by  her  entry 
into  war.  Her  western  and  southern  coasts  are  washed 
by  the  home  waters  of  the  French  fleet,  her  cities  from 
Genoa  to  Brindisi  lie  open  to  British  naval  guns.  The 
conquest  of  Tripoli  still  occupied  her  army  and  weighed 
upon  her  finances.  The  sons  of  her  fertile  loins,  who 
are  to  be  found  in  every  zone  of  both  hemispheres,  might 
at  any  moment  call  upon  the  mother  land  for  protection. 
At  home  the  Socialist  organization  had  for  years  wielded 
a  great  political  power,  and  had  been  aided  in  industrial 
crises  by  a  violent  spirit  of  republicanism  and  anarchy 
which  repeatedly  brought  the  government  almost  to  the 
end  of  its  resources.  That  in  spite  of  these  difficulties, 
in  spite  of  general  strikes  and  bitter  party  conflicts,  in 
spite  of  a  total  lack  of  coal  and  a  very  scanty  supply  of 
other  mineral  resources,  in  spite  of  the  appalHng  want 
and  misery  of  the  agricultural  pro\'inces,  Italy  had  been 
able  to  retain  and  improve  her  position  among  the  great 
powers,  was  due  to  a  pohcy  of  intense  selfishness  towards 
allies  as  well  as  opponents. 

Nor  could  those  German  and  Austrian  agents  whose 
duty  it  was  to  discover  and  weigh  foreign  opinion  have 
been  ignorant  of  Italian  sentiment  toward  the  northern 
allies.  Public  opinion,  a  stronger  force  in  the  peninsula 
than  in  either  of  the  Germanic  states,  had  always  looked 
upon  the  Triple  Alliance  as  a  hard  necessity.  As  a  part 
of  his  national  heritage  the  ItaHan  breathes  in  from  child- 
hood a  deep-going  and  unique  hatred  of  Austria.  This 
feeling  rests  not  merely  upon  the  age-old  interference  of  the 
Teutonic  race  in  ItaHan  affairs.  The  indi\-idual  German 
has  also  grown  unpopular  since  the  foundation  of  the 
new  empire  because  of  his  thrift  and  the  success  with 
which  he  has  invaded  Italy's  business  hfe,  as  well  as  for 
the  abruptness  with  which  he  sought  to  mihtarize  the 


48     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

rounded  outlines  of  Italian  character.  He  has  grown 
unpopular  most  of  all  for  the  way  in  which  he  has  during 
the  past  four  decades  taken  possession  of  the  commerce 
and  industry  of  the  peninsula. 

That  the  situation  must  have  been  clear  to  the  cabinets 
of  Vienna  and  Berhn  goes  without  saying.  They  prob- 
ably did  not  deceive  themselves  with  any  hopes  that  the 
peninsular  state  would  support  Teuton  and  Magyar 
against  the  Slav,  nor  could  they  have  expected  more 
than  a  strict  neutrahty  from  Italy  in  any  conflict  which 
brought  France  and  England  against  the  northern  allies. 
A  tendency  to  misjudge  Italian  character  and  ItaUan 
policy  has,  however,  always  been  one  of  the  great  weak- 
nesses of  German  diplomats  since  the  Triple  Entente 
came  into  existence.  It  is  doubtful  indeed  if  in  the  two 
decades  which  preceded  the  European  War  German  press 
and  people  made  any  real  progress  toward  an  under- 
standing of  Italy  and  its  people.  This  ancient  Teutonic 
incapacity,  so  productive  of  evil  since  the  days  of  the 
Franconian  and  Hohenstaufen  emperors,  was  never  more 
manifest  than  at  the  time  of  the  Algeciras  Conference  and 
during  the  Italo-Turkish  war.  For  ages  Italy  had  been 
the  Mecca  of  cultured  Germans,  in  recent  decades  every 
middle-class  German  crossed  the  Brenner  or  the  Gott- 
hard  at  least  once  in  his  life,  and  German  was  heard 
increasingly  in  restaurant  and  art  gallery,  mountain  inn 
and  village  tavern  from  Domodossola  and  Chiavenna  to 
the  Maltese  Straits.  Yet  in  German  books  and  news- 
papers one  still  found  the  traditional  criticisms  of  Italy 
as  the  classic  land  of  art  and  filth,  of  beggary,  bribery 
and  administrative  rottenness.  Acres  of  newspaper 
articles  discoursed  on  the  squalor  and  misery  of  the 
Calabrian  peasants  or  the  exploits  of  the  Neapolitan 
Camorra,  but  of  such  clean  and  model  cities  as  Turin  or 
the  modern  and  efficient  methods  of  irrigation  and  of 
agriculture  in  the  Po  Valley  very  Httle  appeared,  and  the 
vigorous  growth  of  the  national  spirit  under  the  rotting 


ALLIES  AND   ENEMIES  TO  THE  EAST  49 

crusts  of  old  despotisms  almost  escaped  notice.  It  was 
this  persistent  inabiKty  to  understand  the  evolution  of 
modern  Italy  which  led  to  the  surprises  that  shocked 
German  diplomats  at  Algeciras  and  found  German  press 
and  public  entirely  unprepared  to  appreciate  Italy's 
position  at  the  outbreak  of  the  European  War, 


CHAPTER  III 
The  Rivalry  with  England 

Of  all  the  national  hatreds  which  blazed  into  fierce 
flame  in  the  summer  of  19 14  none  struck  the  neutral 
observer  more  painfully  than  that  between  Germany  and 
England.  Teuton  and  Slav,  German  and  Frenchman 
had  struggled  against  each  other  for  centuries  in  the 
valleys  of  the  Vistula  and  the  Meuse,  and  the  renewal 
of  the  age-old  rivalry  in  its  most  brutal  form,  though  a 
staggering  blow  to  modern  civiHzation,  had  neverthe- 
less a  certain  historical  justification.  That  Briton  and 
German  should  really  come  to  death-grips,  however, 
seemed  a  defiance  of  the  laws  of  nature.  Sister  peoples 
they  are  of  what  is  in  the  main  Teutonic  stock.  But  as 
quarrels  within  a  family  are  marked  by  a  hatred  more 
intense  and  a  spirit  less  forgiving  than  is  showr.  in  strife 
with  those  of  ahen  blood,  so  in  the  wild  crescendo  of 
hate  which  swelled  from  rival  parties  and  camps  in 
August  1914  and  after  there  was  no  note  so  shrill  as  those 
which  rang  across  the  North  Sea.  "The  illusion  of 
British  world  power  must  be  destroyed  once  for  all!" 
"The  threat  of  German  domination  must  vanish  from 
Europe!"  Indeed,  one  may  say  that  not  since  the  le- 
gions and  galleys  of  Rome  and  Carthage  locked  in  their 
death-struggle  had  there  been  shown  a  greater  deter- 
mination on  the  part  of  two  hostile  peoples  to  humilate 
each  other  into  the  dust  of  national  impotence  whence 
no  rise  should  be  possible  for  generations  to  come. 

That  this  feehng  was  not  new  was  of  course  well 
known  to  those  who  had  watched  the  progress  of  Anglo- 

50 


THE   RIVALRY  WITH   ENGLAND  51 

German  relations  since  the  Boer  War.  In  this  period 
almost  the  first  poHtical  chord  which  struck  the  ear  of 
the  foreigner  who  crossed  the  German  frontier  was  that 
of  hostility  to  England.  It  became  in  the  first  decade 
of  the  twentieth  century  the  ground-tone  of  every  poHt- 
ical conversation  and  spread  to  every  class  of  Germans, 
finally  including  the  higher  circles  of  the  aristocracy  and 
the  serried  ranks  of  the  Social  Democracy.  This  feeUng 
had  as  its  base  a  deep  distrust  of  the  island  empire  and 
its  poHcies.  "Perfidious  Albion"  as  completely  pre- 
occupied the  mind  of  the  German  professional  man  or 
bourgeois  shopkeeper  as  it  did  the  mob  in  Paris  in  the 
days  of  Robespierre. 

This  deep  con\4ction  of  England's  utter  lack  of  honesty 
in  diplomatic  affairs  and  the  general  distrust  of  her 
world  policy  were  the  more  striking  in  view  of  the  historic 
friendship  between  Prussia  and  Great  Britain.  Fred- 
erick the  Great  faced  successfully  the  circle  of  his  foes 
only  through  the  support  of  British  subsidies;  and 
although  he  bitterly  resented  the  way  he  was  left  in  the 
lurch  by  Enghsh  statesmen  in  the  later  days  of  the 
Seven  Years'  War,  British  diplomats  remained  ahnost  the 
sole  support  of  Prussian  pohcy  during  the  last  years  of 
Frederick's  reign.  It  was  during  the  Napoleonic  wars, 
however,  that  Prussian  enthusiasm  for  England  ran 
highest.  The  sturdy  island  kingdom,  holding  the  great 
usurper  at  bay  on  the  sea  and  slowly  rolHng  his  legions 
back  in  the  Peninsular  campaigns,  was  an  inspiration  to 
the  Prussian  patriots  who  were  secretly  sharpening  their 
swords  for  the  uprising  against  the  tyrant,  and  British 
and  Prussian  arms  celebrated  a  glorious  common  triumph 
at  Waterloo. 

In  these  years  of  the  Wars  of  Liberation  German  en- 
thusiasm for  things  Enghsh  reached  flood  tide.  The 
Enghsh  lord  appears  in  the  romances  of  Jean  Paul 
Richter  as  the  personification  of  indi\ddual  culture,  an 
aristocrat  not  merely  in  birth  but  in  heart  and  manners. 


52     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Forth  out  of  the  narrow  relations  of  Ufe  as  pictured  in 
Goethe's  Wilhelm  Meister  or  Jean  Paul's  Hesperus,  the 
two  most  popular  novels  of  Germany  one  hundred  years 
ago,  the  German  looked  upon  the  travelled  Englishman 
as  the  typical  representative  of  that  high  personal  cul- 
ture which  the  age  regarded  as  the  end  and  aim  of  exist- 
ence. The  German  of  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  travelled  little  and  Uved  at  home  under  the  hard 
hand  of  officialdom  and  squeezed  into  the  narrowest 
social  conditions :  the  Briton,  in  German  eyes,  drew  in 
freedom  with  his  first  breath,  and  carrying  his  liberties 
with  him,  roved  hke  a  king  through  the  world.  This 
enthusiasm  for  the  individual  Englishman  found  its 
culmination  in  the  ideaHzation  of  Byron's  character. 
To  German  youth  of  the  twenties  and  thirties,  half 
suffocated  under  the  pressure  of  the  pohtical  reaction 
of  those  days,  the  English  poet  seemed  a  hero  of  individ- 
ual development. 

It  was  not  only  the  individual  Englishman  with  the 
cosmopoHtan  polish  of  the  man  who  had  travelled  far 
and  seen  much  that  impressed  German  publicists  in  the 
early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  British  con- 
stitution was  the  ideal  of  German  liberals.  The  men 
who  made  the  revolution  of  1848,  the  political  idealists 
of  the  abortive  National  Assembly  in  the  St.  Paul's 
church  in  Frankfort,  regarded  the  British  constitution 
as  the  last  word  in  Kberal  development,  an  attitude  which 
Prussian  liberals  kept  for  years  after.  When  Bismarck 
took  the  rudder  in  Prussia  in  1862,  with  the  determina- 
tion to  reorganize  the  military  system  of  the  country, 
constitutionally  if  possible,  independently  of  the  con- 
stitution if  necessary,  the  men  who  faced  him  on  the 
Liberal  benches  stood  for  the  British  parliamentary 
system  through  thick  and  thin,  and  it  was  this  enthu- 
siasm for  British  guarantees  and  restraints  on  arbitrary 
power,  backed  by  the  influence  of  Crown  Prince  Fred- 
erick, that  resisted  Bismarck  until  the  victories  of  1866 


THE   RIVALRY   WITH  ENGLAND  53 

finally  brought  him  a  majority  in  the  Prussian  Diet. 
Even  after  the  foundation  of  the  new  empire,  the  Crown 
Prince  and  his  EngHsh  wife,  the  daughter  of  Queen 
Victoria,  formed  a  centre  of  HberaHsm  in  BerUn,  in 
which  enthusiasm  for  British  institutions  gave  way  very 
slowly  to  the  advance  of  the  German  national  spirit. 
Indeed  the  British  constitution  remained  in  many  ways 
the  ideal  of  National  Liberals  and  Radicals  in  Germany 
for  years  after  187 1,  though  a  deep  hostihty  to  British 
''imperialism"  had  long  since  taken  possession  of  all 
classes  of  German  Hberals. 

The  beginnmgs  of  anti-British  feehng  in  Germany 
must  be  sought  in  the  attitude  of  the  British  press  and 
public  toward  the  young  German  empire.  Dislike  and 
distrust  beget  like  feehngs  only  too  readily ;  and  while 
British  public  opinion  heartily  endorsed  the  breaking  of 
Napoleon's  power  in  1870,  the  success  of  German  arms 
was  too  thorough  and  the  rise  of  the  new  confederacy  too 
sudden  not  to  alarm  British  prejudices.  English  sym- 
pathy with  France  increased  as  the  end  of  the  war  came. 
The  humiliation  of  the  ancient  rival  was  so  complete 
as  to  arouse  deep  resentment  on  the  part  of  the  sport- 
loving  nation  across  the  Channel,  and  as  usual,  this 
resentment  expressed  itself  toward  the  conqueror  with 
a  freedom  and  sharpness  that  could  not  fail  to  cut 
German  sensitiveness  to  the  quick.  Bismarck's  memoirs 
and  those  of  his  secretary  Busch  are  filled  with  references 
to  the  bitter  struggle  which  the  Iron  Chancellor  waged 
against  the  court  cabal  in  British  interest  centering 
around  the  Crown  Princess  Victoria.  Slowly  the  con- 
viction won  its  way  among  the  German  people  that  in 
his  opposition  to  this  coterie  Bismarck  was  not  merely 
fighring  UberaHsm,  but  that  he  was  contending  for  a 
national  poHcy  of  the  greatest  importance.  Thus  in  the 
seventies  and  early  eighties  the  foundation  was  slowly 
but  strongly  laid  for  the  anti-British  feeling  which  was 
later  to  overtop  every  other  national  enthusiasm. 


54     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

That  the  feeling  against  England  remained  latent  for 
so  many  years  was  due  to  British  foreign  poHcy,  which 
was  until  the  end  of  the  last  century  chiefly  directed 
against  Russia.  England  has  always  made  it  her  aim 
to  protect  the  balance  of  power  on  the  Continent  by 
opposing  that  power  which  seems  to  threaten  the  bal- 
ance most  aggressively.  Thus  she  opposed  France  under 
Louis  XIV  in  the  age  of  Queen  Anne,  France  and  Austria 
in  the  following  generation,  and  Napoleon  until  the  Cor- 
sican  usurper  ended  his  days  on  one  of  the  most  barren 
British  islands.  She  could  not  be  insensible  to  the 
rapid  advance  of  Germany's  mihtary  power,  reinforced 
as  it  was  in  1879  and  1882  by  alliances  with  Austria 
and  Italy.  It  was,  however,  a  period  of  Russian  ag- 
gression, and  Russia  was  the  power  with  which  British 
interests  colHded.  To  see  how  thoroughly  this  idea 
pervaded  English  official  and  mihtary  circles  until 
toward  the  end  of  the  century  one  needs  only  to  read 
ICipUng's  sombre  tale  of  the  Indian  border,  "The  Man 
who  Was."  Thus  it  came  about  that  British  diplomats 
supported  Bismarck  against  Russia  at  the  Congress  of 
Berhn  in  1878 ;  and  after  the  latter's  check  in  the  Bal- 
kans had  turned  the  activities  of  the  Czar's  statesmen 
and  soldiers  from  the  Bosphorus  toward  Afghanistan, 
British  diplomacy  made  Germany  far-reaching  con- 
cessions. In  1884  and  1885  Great  Britain  met  Bismarck 
fully  halfway  in  the  negotiations  which  preceded  the 
establishment  of  the  German  colony  in  southwest  Africa. 
Here  for  the  first  time  the  great  Chancellor  came  fully 
and  fairly  into  collision  with  British  diplomacy  and  more 
than  held  his  own.  Several  years  later,  while  fighting 
the  intrigues  of  the  court  circle  about  the  Empress 
Victoria  he  summed  up  German  opinion  of  English 
diplomats  in  a  conversation  with  his  press  agent  Busch : 
''Humanity,  peace  and  liberty,  —  those  are  always  their 
pretexts,  when  they  cannot  by  way  of  a  change  invoke 
Christianity  and  the  introduction  of  the  blessings  of 


THE   RIVALRY  WITH   ENGLAND  55 

civilization  to  savage  and  semi-barbarous  peoples." 
In  fact  the  supposed  influence  of  the  English  royal 
family  on  the  Emperor  Frederick  and  his  son,  WiUiam 
II,  was  the  cause^'of  the  bitterest  and  coarsest  attacks 
which  have  ever  been  made  on  the  Hohenzollern  dy- 
nasty by  its  otherwise  loyal  subjects.  No  Socialist 
writer  has  ever  ventured  to  go  so  far  in  denunciation  of 
WilUam  II  as  the  monarchical  Pan-Germanic  press  did 
during  the  exciting  days  of  the  Boer  War. 

Long  before  Bismarck's  retirement  German  industrial 
development  had  begun  to  go  forward  in  a  way  that 
threatened  British  trade.  While  up  to  1880  Germany 
had  hardly  been  regarded  as  a  competitor  of  England 
at  all  in  the  international  market,  in  the  sixteen  years 
which  elapsed  between  the  acquisition  of  the  first 
German  colony  and  the  Boer  war  English  salesmen  found 
themselves  anticipated  by  German  wares  even  in  the 
remotest  corners  of  South  America  and  Asia.  Until 
1890  British  trade  had  dominated  the  colonial  markets ; 
after  1890  there  began  an  influx  of  an  ever  widening 
stream  of  the  products  of  German  industries.  These 
wares  were  introduced  by  carefully  trained  men,  who 
understood  the  language  of  the  buyer  and  were  prepared 
to  meet  his  demands  and  adapt  themselves  to  his  tastes. 
It  is  dangerous  to  generahze  as  to  national  traits, 
but  it  may  safely  be  said  that  at  this  time  a  concih- 
atory  spirit  was  not  characteristic  of  the  British  manu- 
facturer, who  was  wont  to  rely  too  much  on  the  quahty 
of  his  product  for  a  successful  sale.  The  German  manu- 
facturer gave  to  the  subject  of  sales  the  same  careful 
attention  as  to  the  perfection  of  the  means  of  production, 
and  the  far-flung  network  of  industrial  and  trade 
schools  —  with  their  capstone,  the  Handelshochschiilen, 
the  commercial  universities,  which  came  into  being 
toward  the  end  of  the  century  - —  won  so  many  vic- 
tories for  German  trade  that  they  soon  attracted  an 
ever    increasing   number   of    English    students    to   the 


56     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Fatherland.  Trade  rivalry  always  creates  a  basis  favor- 
able to  political  bitterness ;  and  the  enormous  growth 
of  German  trade,  going  in  German  bottoms  into  mar- 
kets which  up  to  the  last  decade  of  the  nineteenth 
century  had  been  preeminently  Enghsh,  was  destined 
to  lay  the  basis  for  a  national  rivalry  which  was  certain 
to  express  itself  as  soon  as  the  political  situation  per- 
mitted it. 

Many  minor  signs  of  the  growing  German  dislike  for 
English  policy  and  EngHsh  resentment  over  German 
rivalry  showed  themselves  in  the  early  nineties.  The 
explosion  came  when  Dr.  Jameson  made  his  ill-advised 
raid  into  the  Transvaal  in  1895.  At  this  violation  of  the 
rights  of  the  racially  related  Boers  German  wrath 
against  the  British  burst  into  an  expression  of  hatred 
which  was  nation-wide  and  found  vent  among  all 
classes,  occasionally  in  dignified  form,  more  often,  as  is 
apt  to  be  the  case  with  national  feehng  deeply  aroused, 
in  ways  that  were  violent  and  sometimes  puerile.  After 
Jameson  and  his  party  were  suppressed.  Kaiser  '^Villiam, 
in  January  1896,  probably  at  the  suggestion  of  his 
foreign  minister,  the  aggressive  Marschall  von  Bie- 
berstein,  whose  work  in  building  the  Turkish  alliance 
will  be  described  below  (page  77),  telegraphed  to 
President  Kriiger,  congratulating  him  on  having  over- 
come the  enemies  of  his  country  without  the  necessity 
of  calling  on  friendly  foreign  powers.  No  act  could 
have  been  more  unfortunate  from  an  international 
standpoint,  unless  Germany  really  meant  to  go  to  war  in 
defense  of  the  Boer  states.  In  England  the  pubHcation 
of  the  telegram  was  greeted  with  amazed  resentment ; 
in  Germany  it  was  the  match  which  exploded  the  whole 
mine  of  bitter  disHke,  the  pent-up  sense  of  restraint 
before  England's  power,  the  hatred  of  the  older  com- 
mercial rival  who  claimed  to  play  the  role  of  dictator 
in  every  corner  of  the  world  overseas.  And  when  in 
1899  the  inevitable  war  between  England  and  the  South 


THE  RIVALRY  WITH  ENGLAND  57 

African  republics  finally  broke  out,  it  found  the  Germans 
as  one  man  on  the  side  of  the  Boers. 

To  those  who  know  the  force  of  German  idealism  this 
could  be  no  surprise.  During  all  of  the  European  crises 
for  one  hundred  years,  from  the  Greek  struggle  for  in- 
dependence down,  German  pubHc  opinion  has  inclined 
to  champion  the  cause  of  the  weaker  party,  even  when 
national  interests  were  involved  on  the  other  side.  Now 
the  empire  through  press  and  publicists  raised  its  voice 
as  one  man  in  favor  of  the  two  httle  states  in  their 
struggle  against  the  British  world  monopoly.  This, 
however,  was  the  attitude  of  every  European  people 
and  of  both  Americas  as  well :  what  gave  a  peculiarly 
sharp  point  to  German  invective  against  England  was 
not  rage  at  the  throttHng  of  the  Boer  repubhcs  nor  the 
much-exploited  racial  kinship  between  Dutch  and  Ger- 
man. No  European  nation  was  so  thoroughly  informed 
as  Germany,  thanks  to  the  patient,  scientific  methods 
of  its  press,  as  to  the  real  character  of  the  Transvaal 
repubhcs,  and  no  nation  would  have  made  shorter  shrift 
with  the  Boers,  had  Germany  stood  in  Great  Britain's 
place.  The  real  cause  of  Germany's  ardent  champion- 
ship lay  in  the  feeling,  often  expressed  during  the  war, 
that  the  sturdy  Dutch  South  Africans  were  really  fight- 
ing the  battles  of  Germany  against  the  hated  Anglo- 
Saxon  rival. 

To  an  American  who  spent  the  years  1899  to  1901  in 
Germany  and  who  lived  through  the  anti-British  demon- 
strations which  accompanied  the  EngHsh  defeats  and 
still  more  the  EngHsh  victories  in  South  Africa,  there 
can  be  Httle  pleasure  but  much  enlightenment  in  re- 
calling the  manifestations  of  national  intolerance.  The 
pro-Boer,  or  rather  the  anti-British  feeling  showed  it- 
self at  every  pubHc  gathering,  from  the  fuU-throated 
singing  of  the  Boer  national  hymn  in  restaurants  and 
theatres  to  prayers  in  the  churches  for  the  success  of  the 
Boer  arms.     Some  of  the  demonstrations  took  the  form 


58     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

of  a  rowdyism  which  is  happily  rare  in  German  life, 
such  as  the  insulting  of  Englishmen  and  Englishwomen 
on  the  streets  or  the  breaking  of  windows  in  English 
boarding  homes  in  Hanover  and  Dresden.  For  such 
things  one  can  hardly  hold  a  nation  responsible :  they 
are  the  manifestations  of  political  unripeness  which 
come  to  the  fore  in  certain  quarters  whenever  the 
national  soul  is  deeply  moved.  Even  newspapers  of 
high  standards  added  their  testimony  as  to  the  agitated 
condition  of  the  pubHc  mind  by  allowing  themselves  to 
accept  every  report  of  Boer  success  and  every  rumor 
of  British  cruelty  as  gospel.  The  press  in  Germany,  as 
will  be  pointed  out  below,  has  the  habit,  not  unknown 
in  other  lands,  of  allowing  its  editorial  views  to  en- 
croach on  its  news  columns,  and  this  political  im- 
maturity, —  for  it  can  be  called  nothing  else,  —  which 
warps  and  twists  the  unwelcome  news  of  defeats  into 
victories,  displayed  itself  during  the  days  of  the  relief 
of  Ladysmith  and  Mafeking  even  in  the  larger  met- 
ropoHtan  journals.  It  was  the  same  political  imma- 
turity which  during  the  war  between  America  and  Spain 
caused  reputable  newspapers  in  Berhn,  Cologne  and 
Munich  to  accept  the  wildest  reports  of  Spanish  vic- 
tories sent  out  from  Madrid  with  perfect  creduhty,  and 
to  spread  them  before  their  readers  in  the  blackest  of 
type,  while  the  Associated  Press  despatches  from 
Washington  were  printed  in  obscure  corners  and  usually 
in  garbled  form,  plentifully  besprinkled  with  editorial 
question  marks  and  exclamation  points.  Similarly  the 
German  press  in  the  war  between  Italy  and  Turkey  in 
1911-12,  having  backed  the  losing  horse,  printed  and 
endorsed  many  extravagant  reports  from  Constantinople 
regarding  Turkish  victories  in  TripoH  and  Cyrenaica, 
even  though  the  editors  and  every  intelligent  reader 
knew  that  communication  of  news  between  North 
Africa  and  the  Golden  Horn  was  out  of  the  question. 
Already  during  the  Boer  War  the  press  tone  in  Germany 


THE   RIVALRY  WITH  ENGLAND  59 

toward  England  had  become  marked  by  the  notes  of 
slander  and  hatred  which  swelled  fifteen  years  later  into 
shrill  discords.  A  perfect  riot  of  abuse  of  everything 
British  ran  at  that  time  through  even  the  better  informed 
press.  On  the  other  hand,  with  a  romanticism  truly 
German,  the  makers  of  pubHc  opinion  introduced  the 
Boers  to  their  readers  as  a  race  of  peasants  Uke  those 
famiUar  to  every  German  in  Schiller's  Wilhelm  Tell,  — 
simple  and  pious  children  of  nature  attacked  in  their 
holiest  rights.  To  the  same  readers  the  British  were 
represented  as  a  cruel  people,  steeped  in  Ues  and  reeking 
with  the  blood  of  primitive  races,  eager  for  an  easy 
conquest  over  mferiors  but  pusillanimous  in  battle  with 
equals. 

The  motives  of  a  nation's  actions  are  as  mixed  as 
those  of  an  individual,  and  tribute  must  be  paid  to  the 
noble  feehng  which  inspired  many  Germans  in  their  en- 
thusiasm for  the  under  dog.  Nevertheless  it  cannot  be 
doubted  that  well-informed  German  editors  were  under 
no  illusion  regarding  the  barbarity  and  selfishness  of 
the  Boers :  the  very  immaturity  of  pubhc  expression  in 
Germany  betrayed  the  fact  that  the  greater  part  of  the 
nation  cared  nothing  for  Boer  success  but  everything 
for  the  humihation  of  England.  "They  are  fighting 
our  battles  down  there  on  the  kopjes  of  South  Africa," 
was  heard  again  and  again,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
many  Germans,  nursed  on  the  legend  of  England's 
decadence,  already  saw  the  Union  Jack  fading  before 
the  black-white-red  banner  as  the  ruhng  standard  of  the 
colonial  world.  England's  naval  position  was,  however, 
in  no  wise  weakened  by  the  struggle ;  and  the  jealousy 
of  Dual  and  Triple  AlHance  of  each  other  prevented  any 
harmony  of  action  towards  the  intervention  which 
Russia  at  least  would  have  welcomed.  In  addition,  the 
German  Emperor  himself,  as  shown  in  a  memorable 
inter\'iew  in  the  London  Daily  Telegraph  in  1908  (cf. 
page  in),  had  at  that  time  extremely  friendly  feelings 


6o     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

for  England,  and  went  so  far  as  to  work  out  a  plan  of 
campaign  for  the  British  advance,  which  he  caused  to 
be  criticised  by  his  general  staff  and  forwarded  to 
London.  This  act  of  "personal  government,"  in  its 
way  as  arbitrary  as  any  ever  committed  by  the  Peters 
and  Alexanders  of  Russia,  might  perhaps  have  caused 
revolutionary  outbreaks,  had  it  become  known  in  Ger- 
many at  the  time  of  greatest  national  excitement,  in- 
stead of  nine  years  later. 

The  Boer  war,  which  marked  the  beginning  of  so  many 
new  movements  in  the  political  Kfe  of  England,  opened  a 
new  chapter  in  the  relations  between  England  and  Ger- 
many. The  Germans  saw  their  great  rival,  who  had 
preceded  them  into  the  field  of  "imperial"  politics 
by  four  generations,  enfeebled  almost  to  the  point  of 
exhaustion,  and  yet  so  weak  was  the  German  fleet  that 
the  empire  was  unable  to  take  advantage  of  the  favor- 
able conjuncture  in  any  way,  or  even,  if  need  arose,  to 
protect  its  own  merchant  marine  from  arbitrary  search 
or  seizure  by  British  cruisers  scouting  for  contraband. 
No  object  lesson  could  have  been  driven  home  upon  any 
people  with  more  telling  force.  If  Germany  were  ever 
to  play  a  more  important  role  than  that  of  an  impotent 
and  agitated  spectator  in  overseas  affairs,  the  mailed 
fist  must  also  be  able  to  make  itself  felt  on  blue  water. 
Enthusiasm  for  the  building  of  a  great  fleet,  which  had 
begun  to  be  nursed  into  life  by  friends  of  the  colonies 
in  1896  and  had  made  great  progress  even  before  the 
war,  grew  now  by  leaps  and  bounds.  In  the  spring  of 
1898  the  government  had  forced  the  naval  bill  through 
the  Reichstag  in  the  face  of  the  opposition  of  the  entire 
Left  and  a  part  of  the  Centre :  two  years  later  amid 
demonstrations  of  popular  enthusiasm  and  with  the 
support  of  practically  all  parties  in  the  Reichstag  ex- 
cept the  Social  Democrats  and  the  anti-national  fac- 
tions, a  new  law  was  passed  which  should  in  six  years 
more  than  double  the  size  of  the  German  fleet.     In  the 


THE  RIVALRY  WITH  ENGLAND  6i 

meantime  the  Navy  League,  which  had  been  organized 
in  1898,  found  all  classes  receptive  for  the  agitation 
which  it  carried  on  by  means  of  public  meetings,  illus- 
trated lectures  and  countless  articles  in  the  press.  After 
1900  the  enthusiasm  for  the  building  of  a  great  fleet 
grew  rapidly  to  a  point  where  the  ministry  could  hardly 
bring  in  proposals  fast  enough  to  suit  the  majority  of 
the  nation.  Most  surprising  was  the  way  in  which  the 
naval  storm  swept  the  entire  Left  along,  when  one  recalls 
how  slowly  and  hesitatingly  the  Liberal  and  Radical 
parties  in  Germany  had  risen  to  the  conception  of  the 
colonial  and  overseas  future  of  the  Fatherland.  The 
Sociahsts  still  protested,  but  it  was  a  lifeless  and  formal 
protest.  Here  and  there  a  Radical  paper  sounded  a 
note  of  warning  at  the  speed  with  w^hich  the  nation 
w^as  pledging  away  its  resources  in  the  efl'ort  to  rival 
England  on  the  seas;  nevertheless  in  191 2  the  entire 
Radical  party  voted  tremendous  additions  to  the  fleet, 
and  when  the  Defense  Bill  of  1913  w-as  brought  forward, 
no  member  of  the  Left  except  the  Social  Democrats 
lifted  his  voice  against  a  further  strengthening  of  the  navy. 
Most  striking  of  all  was  the  way  in  w^hich  districts  like 
Bavaria  and  Wiirtemberg,  remote  from  the  seacoast, 
were  swept  along  in  the  common  enthusiasm,  showing 
how  fully  local  selfishness  and  particularism  had  given 
way  before  the  idea  of  a  "Greater  Germany." 

As  usual  the  British  were  slow  to  take  alarm.  Bitter- 
ness over  Germany's  trade  rivalry  and  deep  resentment 
at  the  \dolent  partisanship  and  accusations  of  the 
Germans  during  the  Boer  war  were  increasingly  evident 
in  the  EngHsh  press,  but  the  new  century  was  well  started 
before  Englishmen  realized  that  the  industrious  Germans 
were  really  preparing  to  threaten  Britain's  naval  su- 
premacy. Not  indeed  until  the  publication  of  the  naval 
program  of  1906  did  the  London  papers  and  their 
readers  become  thoroughly  aroused.  Englishmen,  al- 
ready restive   under   the   rapid   growth   of    Germany's 


62     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

trade,  could  not  construe  the  tremendous  increase  of 
the  German  fleet  in  any  other  way  than  as  a  direct 
threat  to  overthrow  the  mistress  of  the  seas.  The  time- 
honored  idea  that  Britain's  existence  as  a  nation  de- 
pends on  her  abihty  to  hold  the  ocean  against  the 
combined  forces  of  any  two  hostile  nations  must  be  aban- 
doned ;  the  island  kingdom  must  exert  itself  to  maintain 
a  safe  leadership  over  the  German  empire  alone.  After 
the  first  alarm,  as  soon  as  the  popular  mind  had  become 
convinced  that  the  Admiralty  was  alive  to  the  situation, 
pubKc  anxiety  was  relieved,  only  to  arise  anew  as  from 
time  to  time  the  Conservative  press  brought  Germany's 
naval  growth  more  and  more  clearly  before  British 
readers.  Certain  London  papers,  indeed,  made  of  the 
"German  peril"  a  regular  bugaboo  in  order  to  put  life 
into  the  political  situation  at  home. 

Since  1904  EngHsh  foreign  poHcy  has  had  the  "  German 
peril"  as  its  ground  tone.  It  was  this  that  brought 
England  and  France  together  in  1904  and  created  the 
Entente,  for  which  King  Edward's  foreign  poHcy  has 
usually  received  the  credit.  It  was  the  weakening  of 
Russia  in  the  war  with  Japan  and  the  consequent  loss 
of  balance  in  eastern  Europe  in  favor  of  the  Triple 
AlHance  which  induced  England  to  open  the  way  for 
the  ancient  enemy  and  rival,  now  weakened  and  for  the 
present  harmless,  to  enter  a  friendly  understanding. 
The  Triple  Entente  between  England,  France  and  Russia 
which  finally  came  into  being  in  1907,  had  its  prelude 
in  common  action  at  the  Algeciras  Conference  of  1906; 
and  the  entire  Morocco  controversy  showed  a  com- 
munity of  interest  among  Germany's  three  rivals  and 
soHdified  the  ring  which  Enghsh  diplomacy  had  been 
drawing  around  the  growing  ambitions  of  her  feared 
antagonist.  The  matter  reached  a  crisis  in  the  summer 
of  191 1,  when  the  German  warship  was  sent  to  Agadir 
on  the  coast  of  southern  Morocco  (cf.  page  18),  and 
Mr.  Asquith  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  the  former  in  the 


THE   RI\'ALRY   WITH   ENGLAND  63 

House  of  Commons,  the  latter  in  a  Guildhall  speech, 
declared  in  language  but  thinly  veiled  that  under  no 
circumstances  would  Great  Britain  permit  the  German 
Empire  to  secure  any  point  which  might  serve  as  a 
naval  base  on  the  West  African  coast.  To  understand 
the  bitter  explosion  in  Germany  over  this  curt  warning 
one  must  recall  that  many  voices,  not  merely  Pan- Ger- 
manic voices,  were  clamoring  for  the  cession  of  southern 
Morocco,  and  there  seems  no  doubt  that  France,  if  left 
to  her  own  devices,  would  have  wilhngly  >delded  to 
Germany  control  over  the  country  to  the  south  if  she 
could  thereby  have  secured  a  free  hand  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  in  northern  Morocco.  So  much  the  more 
humiliating  therefore  was  the  declaration  of  the  British 
ministry,  and  even  a  less  sensitive  and  honor  loving 
nation  than  the  German  would  have  resented  it.  All 
the  world  now  knows  how  close  England  and  Germany 
were  to  war  in  August  and  September  191 1;  only  the 
greatest  self-restraint  on  the  part  of  the  two  foreign 
oflSces,  for  which  Germany,  as  in  a  sense  the  aggrieved 
power,  deserved  the  greater  credit,  prevented  a  clash 
of  fleets  in  the  North  Sea  and  the  frightful  disaster  to 
civihzation  which  finally  came  two  years  and  eleven 
months  later.  That  portion  of  German  public  opinion 
which  was  ever  able  to  \dew  the  affair  calmly  severely 
criticised  the  government  for  leading  the  nation  into  a 
blind  alley  and  provoking  a  humiliation. 

Once  more  Germany  gave  back  before  England's 
sea  power,  and  accepted  a  settlement  with  France 
which  resigned  hopes  of  a  foothold  on  the  West 
African  coast  for  an  inland  equatorial  district  of  minor 
economic  value  and  no  strategic  importance.  Once 
more  the  empire  saw  its  freedom  on  the  sea,  a  freedom 
which  is  directly  dependent  on  naval  bases,  checked  by 
British  jealousy.  Stripped  of  all  the  wild  words  of 
Pan-Germianic  chauvinists,  Germany's  attitude  toward 
England  was  just  this :    "  Great  Britain  rules  over  one- 


64     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

fourth  of  the  earth's  surface  and  one-third  of  its  in- 
habitants. She  has  girdled  the  globe  with  naval  sta- 
tions and  fortified  ports.  She  opposes  and  checkmate^ 
Germany  in  all  of  her  efforts  to  obtain  naval  bases  and 
coahng  harbors,  and  she  looks  with  a  bihous  and  dis- 
approving eye  on  the  building  of  a  fleet  which  is  to  enable 
the  empire  to  furnish  adequate  and  legitimate  protec- 
tion to  its  growing  commerce.  If  she  takes  every  op- 
portunity to  thwart  Germany's  natural  ambition,  she 
must  accept  the  consequences  when  the  young  German 
fleet  shall  have  grown  great  enough  to  hazard  a  conflict 
with  the  colossus.  When  that  day  comes,  let  England 
look  out !  Then  the  storm-defended  isle  shall  have  its 
security  tested."  One  did  not  need  to  look  in  the  fire- 
breathing  Berhn  Post  or  the  Tdgliche  Rundschau  for 
such  expressions :  they  were  to  be  found  even  in  such 
well-balanced  journals  as  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung  or  the 
Kdlnische  Zeitung,  and  in  provincial  newspapers  from 
Strasburg  to  Konigsberg.  The  additions  to  the  fleet 
in  April  and  May  191 2  and  again  in  the  budget  of  191 3 
were  voted  by  a  Reichstag,  the  majority  of  whose  mem- 
bers were  Liberal  or  Socialist,  with  enthusiasm,  and  every 
expression  of  Winston  Churchill's  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons with  respect  to  Germany's  naval  power,  especially 
the  unfortunate  reference  to  the  German  fleet  as  a 
''luxury,"  called  forth  bitter  outbursts  of  distrust  and 
indignation  in  the  Reichstag   and  the  public  press. 

England  then  —  so  held  German  patriots  —  was 
Germany's  great  stumbHng  block.  All  that  German 
thrift  and  industry  had  been  able  to  accompnsh  in  the 
past  decades,  all  the  attainments  of  German  inventors 
and  technicians,  all  the  triumphs  of  Germany  in  the! 
rivalry  for  the  world's  trade,  rested  upon  an  insecure 
basis,  so  long  as  Great  Britain  ruled  the  seas  and  blocked 
every  avenue  to  German  poHtical  advance  oversea.  It 
was  not  British  technicians  or  scholars  or  workmen  or 
salesmen  that  kept  Germany  from  taking  the  "place 


THE   RIVALRY   WITH   ENGLAND  65 

in  the  sun"  to  which  she  was  justly  entitled,  but  the 
rude  power  of  British  bottoms  and  cannon.  Having 
by  robbery  and  chicane  won  numerous  naval  vantage 
spots,  Great  Britain  now  interposed  with  dog-in-the- 
manger  insolence  a  determined  opposition  to  the  reason- 
able claims  of  the  empire  to  political  expansion.  ''Car- 
thage must  be  destroyed  !"  cried  the  Pan-Germanists, 
and  not  only  these.  "  Great  Britain  has  by  her  hypo- 
critical diplomacy  and  by  treacherous  incitement  of  one 
nation  against  another  ruled  the  world  long  enough. 
Sooner  or  later  she  will  try  to  destroy  Germany's  power ; 
either  she  or  we  must  perish." 

This  wave  of  bitterness,  which  reached  its  first  flood 
height  just  after  the  close  of  the  Morocco  episode,  soon 
had  its  effect  in  England.  Across  the  Channel,  as  has 
been  noted,  hostile  feeling  against  the  Germans  first 
became  keen  as  a  result  of  the  Boer  war.  Frenzied 
attacks  on  the  British  national  character,  unpleasant 
caricatures  of  the  British  royal  family,  including  the 
aged  Queen  Victoria,  outbreaks  of  rowdyism  toward 
EngHsh  residents  and  travellers,  all  bore  their  natural 
fruit  in  England.  National  mistrust  of  German  poHcy 
had,  as  we  have  seen,  a  far  deeper  foundation,  resting 
on  the  commercial  and  industrial  rivalry  by  which 
Germany  had  continually  gained  upon  the  former  un- 
disputed mistress  of  the  world's  trade.  To  this  is  to 
be  added  the  wild  and  irresponsible  talk  of  the  Pan- 
Germanists,  in  whose  mind  the  young  empire  was  some 
day  to  revive  the  glories  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  Hohenzollern,  Hke  Henry 
V  or  Barbarossa,  to  hold  sway  over  a  succession  of 
vassal  states  from  the  North  Sea  and  the  Baltic  to 
southern  Italy.  Such  fantastic  dreams  as  this,  though 
entertained  by  not  a  few  German  patriots,  were  not 
taken  seriously  by  the  great  majority  of  the  nation. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  British 
public,  already  exasperated  by  the  violence  of  loose- 


66     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN   TWO  WARS 

mouthed  German  journaKsts,  grew  mistrustful  over 
the  reports  of  these  and  other  wilder  dreams  of  German 
brochurist  and  editor,  especially  when  accompanied  by 
accounts  of  the  rapid  growth  of  the  German  fleet.  The 
British  rate-payer,  hard  hit  as  he  was  by  the  introduction 
of  compulsory  insurance  and  other  social  legislation, 
might  have  been  willing  to  accept  the  explanation  that 
the  German  fleet  was  for  defense  rather  than  conquest 
but  for  the  constant  stream  of  chauvinist  threats 
launched  from  Berlin  and  the  provincial  press.  Why  did 
the  Germans  need  a  great  fleet?  This  was  a  question 
which  the  average  EngHshman  now  refused  to  answer 
save  in  one  way :  "It  is  a  threat  against  England."  In 
fact,  during  the  several  crises  of  the  Morocco  negotia- 
tions, notably  in  1905  and  191 1,  a  panic  developed  which 
did  no  credit  to  the  British  reputation  for  poise  and 
self-control.  While  the  governm^ent  in  August  191 1 
unostentatiously  made  all  preparations  to  mobilize 
the  home  naval  strength  against  a  German  naval 
attack,  frightened  Enghshmen  began  to  see  the  smoke 
of  Germany's  battleships  already  on  the  horizon  and 
to  smell  out  a  spy  in  every  German  waiter.  The  arrest 
and  trial  of  spies,  one  of  the  most  disagreeable  tasks 
that  can  fall  to  the  duty  of  any  government,  began  to 
be  carried  on  in  191 1  on  both  sides  of  the  North  Sea 
with  more  enthusiasm  than  judgment,  with,  however, 
the  difference  that  German  judicial  procedure  has  cer- 
tain Star  Chamber  methods  which  are  highly  repugnant 
to  British  feehngs.  Such  trials  as  those  of  Captain 
Stewart  of  the  British  Naval  Reserve,  who  was  sentenced 
by  the  Imperial  Supreme  Court  in  Leipsic  in  January 
191 2  to  five  years'  imprisonment,  aroused  deep  resent- 
ment in  England. 

In  the  meantime  naval  armament  went  on.  In  191 2 
the  British  Admiralty  formally  abandoned  its  "two  for 
one"  policy,  and  announced  that  henceforth  British 
navy  yards  would  lay  down  three  warships  for  every 


THE   RIVALRY   WITH   ENGLAND  67 

two  which  were  undertaken  by  the  leading  rival  nation, 
a  program  which  was  afterwards  taken  to  mean  "six- 
teen to  ten"  in  comparative  fighting  units.  No  end  of 
the  battle  of  pocketbooks  was  visible.  So  long  as 
Germany  was  convinced  that  England  was  constantly 
plotting  to  isolate  the  empire  and  block  its  legitimate 
efforts  towards  poHtical  expansion,  so  long  as  Britons 
felt  that  the  German  fleet  was  destined  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  British  sea  power  and  a  threat  against  Eng- 
land's national  existence,  so  long  must  the  terrific  race 
continue.  Hypnotized  by  its  dread  of  the  other,  it 
seemed  that  neither  party  could  pause  until  the  moment 
of  exhaustion  should  be  reached.  There  were  signs  on 
both  sides,  however,  that  business  circles  felt  that  the 
limit  was  being  approached.  Before  the  end  of  191 2 
there  were  not  lacking  voices,  chiefly  Liberal  and  Radical, 
in  both  countries  which  called  loudly  for  an  end  to  the 
exhausting  competition. 

With  thje  Balkan  Wars  of  191 2  and  19 13  a  turn  in 
the  pohtical  relations  of  Germany  and  England  seemed 
to  have  been  reached.  Each  of  these  crises  tried  to  the 
utmost  the  resources  of  European  diplomacy.  The 
formation  of  the  Balkan  AUiance  had  endangered 
Austria-Hungary's  position  and  Austria-Hungary  was 
Germany's  only  dependable  ally.  In  case  of  an  attack 
by  the  Franco-Russian  coalition,  even  unsupported  by 
England,  Germany  would,  without  the  help  of  Austria, 
have  had  a  desperate  task  to  maintain  herself.  Thus, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  German  general  staff  brought  before 
the  Reichstag  in  the  spring  of  1913  a  Defense  Bill, 
which  increased  the  active  strength  of  the  army  by 
136,000  officers  and  men  and  27,000  horses,  provided 
for  the  aviation  corps,  added  to  the  transportation  and 
intelligence  equipment  and  prepared  for  an  enormous 
amount  of  new  war  material.  These  additions  in  men 
and  material  which  cost  the  Entente  Allies  so  dear  in 
the  early  stages  of  the  European  War  were  mainly  ad- 


68     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE   BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

ditions  to  the  army.  The  lesson  of  191 1  had,  however, 
taught  both  Germany  and  England  that  a  conflict 
between  the  two  countries  would  find  British  troops 
fighting  on  the  Continent  with  Germany's  opponents. 
As  shown  by  the  documents  found  by  the  Germans  in 
the  Belgian  archives  at  Brussels,  the  British  authorities 
had  counted  upon  the  violation  of  Belgian  neutrality 
as  a  strong  probabiHty  and  were  laying  plans  during  the 
Morocco  crises  in  1905  and  191 1  and  during  the  Balkan 
crisis  of  191 2  to  face  this  emergency.  In  19 13  the 
rift  in  the  Balkan  League  relieved  Austria  and  her 
Germanic  ally  from  the  fear  of  a  solid  aUiance  of  the 
southeastern  powers,  fired  by  Russian  intrigue,  but  the 
question  of  an  outlet  for  Serbia  to  the  Adriatic  was  still 
pending  and  big  with  terrible  possibihties. 

The  searching  of  diplomatic  hearts  which  followed  the 
outbreak  of  war  in  August  19 14  revealed  how  close 
Europe  had  been  to  a  conflagration  in  the  two  preceding 
years.  The  London  Conference  of  the  powers  which 
marked  off  the  new  boundaries  in  the  Balkans,  carving 
out  an  autonomous  Albania  as  a  buffer  state  and  a 
breastwork  against  the  Slavic  march  to  the  Adriatic, 
stood  under  the  leadership  of  Sir  Edward  Grey,  but 
Germany  shared  control  with  England,  and  both  powers 
seem  to  have  worked  honestly  and  earnestly  to  preserve 
the  world's  peace,  which  at  that  time  tottered  to  a  fall. 
For  the  delay  of  a  year  in  letting  loose  the  horrors  of 
war  upon  Europe  the  honest  effort  of  both  powers 
deserves  all  credit.  Indeed,  it  must  be  emphasized 
that  when  in  January  and  April  of  the  fateful  year  1914 
the  German  press  began  to  be  filled  with  mutterings  of 
Russia's  war  preparations,  the  greatest  miHtary  and 
the  greatest  naval  power  in  the  world  had  at  last  settled 
down  to  a  state  of  affairs  which,  while  armed  and  watch- 
ful, nevertheless  seemed  to  contain  some  possibihties 
of  a  final  understanding.  In  191 2  Germany  had  sent 
her  best  diplomat,  Baron  Marschall  von  Bieberstein, 


THE  RIVALRY  WITH  ENGLAND  69 

as  ambassador  to  London.  He  it  was  who  had  spun 
the  web  of  German  influence  around  the  Turkish  sultan, 
and  much  was  counted  on  from  his  trained  touch,  which 
Hke  the  hand  of  steel  under  a  silken  glove  knew  how 
to  bring  the  play  of  force  under  the  form  of  a  caress. 
But  fate  willed  otherwise.  In  less  than  a  year  Baron 
Marschall  died  and  his  place  was  taken  by  Prince 
Lichnowsky,  a  member  of  the  Silesian  landed  aris- 
tocracy. A  gentleman  of  culture  and  refinement,  the 
new  German  ambassador  won  the  respect  of  the 
British  diplomats  and  seemed  in  a  fair  way  to  accom- 
plish much  for  the  improvement  of  Anglo- German  re- 
lations when  the  bomb  and  pistol  of  the  assassins  of 
Sarajevo  Ughted  a  fuse  which  no  diplomatic  skill  could 
extinguish. 

To  the  superficial  observer  it  would  seem,  indeed, 
that  the  most  sensitive  questions  of  difference  between 
Germany  and  England  had  been  settled.  Morocco 
was  definitely  out  of  the  way.  The  Bagdad  Railway, 
which  had  seemed  so  big  with  trouble,  had  reached  a 
stage  of  preliminary  agreement.  This  question  will 
be  treated  in  some  detail  in  the  next  chapter.  It  was, 
in  effect,  nothing  more  than  a  race  between  Great 
Britain  and  Germany  as  to  which  power  should  develop 
the  fat  basin  of  the  Tigris  and  Euphrates.  However, 
in  the  face  of  the  far  more  dangerous  potentialities  of 
the  Balkan  problem  both  powers  showed  themselves 
ready  to  give  and  take,  and  a  conference  on  the  Bagdad 
Railway  between  the  governments  of  London,  Berlin 
and  Constantinople  in  the  spring  of  191 3  was  carried 
on  in  a  new  spirit  of  conciliation.  Liberal  journals  on 
both  sides  of  the  North  Sea  greeted  with  enthusiasm 
these  signs  of  an  attitude  of  compromise,  which  is  the 
first  essential  to  a  lasting  peace  between  nations.  Indeed, 
during  the  two  years  preceding  the  outbreak  of  the 
European  War  many  elements  in  both  countries  were 
feverishly  at  work,  striving  to  make  a  conflict  between 


I 


70     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Germany  and  England  impossible.  Far-sighted  men  on 
both  sides  of  the  North  Sea  recognized  how  much  peace- 
ful rivalry  had  done  and  might  yet  do  in  stimulating  both 
nations  in  the  field  of  commercial  enterprise,  and  Ger- 
man trade  circles  particularly  bent  the  weight  of  theii*. 
influence  on  Radical  and  National  Liberal  press  andl 
parliamentary  leaders  to  cultivate  better  relations  w^itb 
England. 

Peace  between  England  and  Germany  was,  however, 
not  to  be.  The  sources  of  their  rivalry  lay  too  close 
to  the  heart  of  each  people  and  had  become  too  vitally 
interwoven  with  the  ambitions  of  the  British  and  German 
races.  Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  it  was  not  the^ 
neutrahty  of  Belgium  or  the  protection  of  French  ports, 
no  mere  "scrap  of  paper,"  whether  it  contained  an 
international  treaty  covering  Belgian  neutrality  or  a 
British  agreement  with  Russia,  that  brought  Great 
Britain  into  the  circle  of  Germany's  foes  in  August  1914. 
Ever  since  the  Boer  War  the  stage  was  being  set  for  the 
conflict,  and  if  in  191 1  over  a  question  in  which  the 
safety  of  British  commerce  was  only  indirectly  involved 
peace  could  scarcely  be  maintained,  it  is  hardly  thinkable 
that  in  a  struggle  which  put  at  stake  the  entire  balance 
on  the  European  continent,  the  British  people  would 
stand  idly  by  while  the  central  powers  triumphed.  This 
was  the  fact,  and  the  diplomatic  sparring  revealed  in 
White  and  Yellow  and  Orange  books  and  papers  reads 
Hke  the  arguments  of  clever  lawyers  over  a  case  which 
all  had  decided  must  be  appealed  to  a  higher  court. 
Despite  all  humanitarian  feeling  and  talk  about  Bel- 
gium, Great  Britain  must  sooner  or  later  have  taken  up 
arms  to  prevent  Germany  from  making  herself  stronger 
on  blue  water  as  an  issue  of  the  conflict.  The  only 
way  in  which  the  Berlin  diplomats  could  have  kept  Great 
Britain  out  of  the  war  would  have  been  by  accepting 
from  the  London  government  such  restrictions  on  the 
movements  of  the  Kaiser's  armies  and  fleet  against  France 


THE   RIVALRY  WITH  ENGLAND  71 

as  would  have  insured  Germany's  defeat.  To  this  point 
the  iron  logic  of  events  had  brought  the  rival  nations. 
The  failure  to  realize  this  clearly  before  the  beginning 
of  the  negotiations  which  led  up  to  the  war  of  1914  must 
be  set  down  as  one  of  the  most  grievous  mistakes  of 
German  diplomacy. 


CHAPTER  IV 

Expansion  and  Ambitions 

If  in  the  j&rst  decade  of  the  twentieth  century  the 
nations  outside  of  the  Triple  AlKance  had  been  asked 
to  vote  as  to  which  power  constituted  the  greatest 
danger  to  the  peace  of  the  world,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  verdict  would  have  fallen  almost  unanimously 
against  Germany.  "Not  believing  in  peace,  the  Ger- 
mans do  not  know  how  to  organize  peace,"  writes 
the  French  historian  Gabriel  Hanotaux  with  respect  to 
the  establishment  and  continual  strengthening  of  the 
military  system  by  which  the  Germans  stood  on  guard 
against  French  revenge  and  Russian  aggressions.  In 
fact,  most  historians  would  probably  agree  with  the 
French  academician  and  statesman  in  puttiag  upon 
Germany  the  responsibility  for  the  so-called  "armed 
peace"  which  prevailed  in  Europe  for  forty- three  years 
after  the  rise  of  united  Germany  and  united  Italy. 
Having  torn  Alsace  and  Lorraine  from  France  by  vio- 
lence, the  empire  felt  obliged  to  retain  them  by  a  con- 
stant display  of  force.  The  presence  in  central  Europe 
of  a  great  power  armed  to  the  teeth  made  it  necessary 
for  its  neighbors  to  adopt  the  same  poHcy ;  and  France 
and  Austria,  Italy  and  even  Belgium  and  Switzerland 
and  Holland  put  forth  unremitting  and  exhausting  efforts 
to  get  every  man  of  weapon-bearing  age  within  reach 
of  the  call  to  mobilization,  pouring  out  the  wealth  of 
their  taxpayers  for  new  cannon,  new  explosives,  new 
uniforms  and  new-model  equipment  of  every  character. 

72 


EXPANSION  AND  AMBITIONS  73 

Scarcely  was  the  infantry  equipped  with  a  new  type  of 
magazine  rifle  when  the  invention  of  some  deadlier 
device  demanded  an  expensive  substitution.  Each 
fresh  discovery  in  the  field  of  science,  such  as  the  wire- 
less telegraph,  the  dirigible  balloon  and  the  aeroplane, 
was  immediately  organized  into  an  instrument  for  help 
in  war  with  further  demands  on  the  taxpayers.  When 
government  means  did  not  suflSce,  the  drum  beat  of  the 
chauvinistic  press  called  forth  voluntary  offerings 
from  private  citizens,  and  here  again  nation  rivalled 
nation,  as  in  the  public  subscriptions  for  the  equipment 
of  an  aviation  corps  in  France  and  Germany  in  191 2. 

In  arraigning  Germany  for  inciting  to  this  mad  race 
of  pocketbooks,  foreign  critics  are  apt  to  forget  that  the 
Empire  is  almost  entirely  without  natural  defenses.  It 
has,  as  Joseph  de  Maistre  once  said  of  Austria,  "neigh- 
bors on  every  side  and  frontiers  nowhere."  One  forgets 
also  that  for  centuries  Germany  was  a  battle  ground 
for  the  selfishness  and  bloodlust  of  Frenchmen,  Dutch- 
men, Swedes,  Spaniards  and  the  Slavic  peoples,  and 
blames  the  nation  for  ha\dng  taken  the  only  means 
which  under  the  infirmities  of  the  present  stage  of  civiUza- 
tion  are  effective  for  insuring  peace  and  prosperity  within 
the  confines  of  a  great  state. 

The  picture  of  Germany  as  the  naughty  boy  on  the 
international  playground  was  drawn  and  retouched  by 
the  Russian,  French  and  British  press  until  the  popular 
mind  outside  of  central  Europe  came  to  accept  it  without 
question.  Here  the  Germans  were  greatly  handicapped 
by  the  lack  of  an  international  press  agency  of  standing. 
Reuter's  Bureau,  which  enwraps  the  world  with  its 
network  of  correspondents,  is  under  British  control. 
The  great  London  daihes,  like  the  Times  and  the  Daily 
Chronicle,  have  at  their  disposal  a  host  of  far-scattered 
newsgatherers,  highly  trained  men,  whose  position  with 
these  powerful  organs  —  by  weight  of  tradition,  if 
nothing    else  —  gives    them    an    insight    into    difficult 


74     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

situations  all  over  the  world  and  enables  them  to  speak 
with  authority.  Against  these  efficient  organs  »i 
newsgathering  and  publicity  Germany  has  had  only 
Wolff's  Bureau,  a  comparatively  weak  official  mouth- 
piece, altogether  without  standing  outside  of  the  Father- 
land, and  newspapers  whose  names  are  scarcely  known 
beyond  the  German-speaking  world.  The  shortcoinings 
of  the  German  papers  as  newsgatherers  will  be  dis- 
cussed below,  here  it  is  enough  to  note  that  the  tone  of 
immaturity  and  triviality  which  has  marked  the  German 
press  in  dealing  with  pohtical  affairs  has  been  especially 
noticeable  in  its  foreign  correspondence.  In  Paris, 
Washington,  St.  Petersburg  and  Rome  the  correspond- 
ents of  the  leading  London  papers  are  men  whose  intel- 
lectual and  social  gifts  often  give  them  almost  a  diplo- 
matic standing.  How  different  the  material  is  from  which 
German  correspondents  are  drawn  becomes  appallingly 
clear  when  one  reads  over  a  few  of  the  futile,  captious 
and  misinformed  letters  which  have  appeared  from  these 
capitals  in  the  Berhn  press.  The  international  in- 
fluence of  the  German  press  is  also  greatly  reduced  by 
the  fact  that  German  is  only  just  becoming  an  inter- 
national language.  For  centuries  French  and  English 
have  been  the  medium  of  world  discourse,  and  the  diffi- 
culties of  German  make  its  rivalry  with  the  two  West 
European  dialects  no  easy  matter.  Up  to  the  outbreak 
of  the  European  war  most  German  news  came  to  America 
through  Enghsh  channels,  and  our  journals  rarely  took 
an  entirely  independent  attitude  toward  Germany's  for- 
eign relations. 

The  results  of  this  Anglo-French  control  over  news 
channels  were  evident  in  every  crisis.  Not  merely 
among  its  rivals,  but  in  every  country  where  German  is 
a  foreign  idiom,  Germany  was  made  to  appear  as  an 
interloper  in  international  affairs.  In  the  struggles  in 
Samoa  in  1898,  in  the  Morocco  affair,  in  Austria's  an- 
nexation of  the  Balkan  provinces  in  1908,  in  the  war 


EXPANSION  AND   AMBITIONS  75 

between  Italy  and  Turkey,  in  the  contest  between  Turkey 
and  the  Balkan  states,  Germany  was  regularly  repre- 
sented to  the  world  by  the  Anglo-Franco-American 
press  as  a  trouble  maker.  The  supposed  vaulting  ambi- 
tion of  the  German  Emperor  or  the  greed  of  the  Berhn 
government  appeared  always  as  a  cloud  on  the  European 
horizon.  In  their  zeal  to  pubHsh  to  the  world  the 
German  danger  the  opponents  of  the  empire  did  not 
even  pretend  to  be  logical.  Thus  German  efforts  to 
get  a  predominant  influence  in  southern  Morocco 
caused  bitter  criticism  in  the  same  London  and  New  York 
journals  which  found  France's  assumption  of  practically 
sovereign  rights  over  an  aUen  race  a  step  in  the  beneficent 
progress  of  civihzation.  Germany,  it  was  said,  could  be 
building  a  great  fleet  only  in  order  to  satisfy  her  "land 
hunger,"  while  practically  the  same  movement  on  the 
part  of  France  and  Russia  appeared  in  the  British  in- 
fluenced press  as  a  perfectly  natural  step  in  national 
development.  In  the  discussion  of  every  international 
question  Germany  was  made  to  appear  in  the  uttermost 
parts  of  the  civiUzed  world  marked  with  the  stigma  of  a 
disturber  of  the  peace. 

For  this  attitude  of  the  great  family  of  civilized  nations 
outside  of  Austria-Hungary  not  all  of  the  blame  rested 
upon  foreign  misrepresentation.  A  considerable  part 
was  to  be  credited  to  the  faults  of  German  diplomacy. 
Bismarck  once  said  that  the  want  of  finesse  was,  accord- 
ing to  circumstances,  now  a  strength  and  now  a  weak- 
ness of  German  poKcy.  In  the  field  of  latter-day  diplo- 
macy it  showed  itself  almost  entirely  a  weakness.  The 
fluctuations  and  uncertainties,  the  false  starts  and  sub- 
sequent withdrawals  of  German  poUcy  in  the  years 
between  1895  and  191 5  led  again  and  again  to  sharp 
criticism  in  the  Reichstag  and  among  thinking  German 
pubHcists.  The  vacillating  course  which  entered  on 
a  vigorous  policy  in  China,  only  to  abandon  it  after 
expensive  investments,  showed  a  gleam  of  over-zealous 


76     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

friendship  for  Spain  on  a  memorable  May  i  in  Manila 
harbor  and  then  sought  by  every  means  to  re- 
move American  suspicions,  neglected  a  golden  oppor- 
tunity for  England's  friendship  after  the  Boer  War, 
failed  to  win  the  support  of  Spain  in  the  early  stages  of 
the  Morocco  imbrogho,  —  this  course  cost  German 
patriots  dear  in  the  two  decades  after  Bismarck's  retire- 
ment. These  demi-voltes  have  been  ascribed  by  many 
Germans  to  the  strong  personal  influence  of  the  Emperor 
on  the  nation's  foreign  policy ;  but  many  of  the  failures 
of  the  German  diplomatic  service  both  at  home  and 
abroad  were  to  be  charged  to  the  feudal  organization 
of  the  department,  which  reserved  the  higher  posts  for 
the  vigorous  but  self-willed  aristocracy.  In  part  these 
failures  were  most  certainly  due  to  the  sturdy  independ- 
ence of  German  character,  which  cannot  substitute 
clever  subterfuge  for  brutal  frankness  and  which  often 
seems  incapable  of  successful  diplomatic  intrigue.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  so  many  German  statesmen  have 
sought  to  model  their  conduct  after  Bismarck,  who, 
like  Robert  Guiscard,  was  a  combination  of  lion  and 
serpent,  masking  under  a  sturdy  Teutonic  frankness 
of  approach  a  rare  capacity  for  the  subterranean  methods 
of  diplomacy  and  possessing  a  real  gift  of  second  sight 
in  his  abihty  to  penetrate  the  moves  and  motives  of  his 
opponents.  The  statesmen  that  followed  him  retained 
Bismarck's  bluster  without  the  clever  strategy  by  which 
the  Iron  Chancellor  outflanked  his  opponents.  Instead 
of  a  policy,  they  advanced  many  and  often  self-contra- 
dictory policies,  and  on  several  occasions  during  the 
Morocco  crises  showed  themselves  sadly  lacking  before 
the  smooth  finesse  of  the  French  ambassadors  or  the 
far-reaching  selfish  statesmanship  of  the  British  diplo- 
mats. That  the  possession  of  the  finer  diplomatic 
qualities  is  not  inconsistent  with  German  character  was 
illustrated  by  the  record  of  the  late  Freiherr  Marschall 
von  Bieberstein,  transferred  in  the  spring  of  191 2  from 


EXPANSION  AND  AMBITIONS  77 

the  ambassador's  post  at  Constantinople  to  that  of 
London  (cf.  page  68).  In  nearly  a  score  of  years  at 
the  Turkish  capital  this  sturdy  Swabian  aristocrat 
continually  strengthened  the  position  of  Germany  with 
the  Porte,  holding  by  his  frankness  and  cleverness  the 
respect  of  friend  and  foe,  outflanking  Enghsh,  French 
and  Russian  manoeuvres  and  inoculating  the  Young  Turk 
leaders  of  1908,  some  of  whom  had  spent  years  of  exile 
in  Paris  and  London,  with  the  same  friendship  for  Ger- 
many which  had  been  a  steady  tradition  of  the  old 
despot  Abdul  Hamid. 

Baron  Marschall  was  an  ultra-Conservative  and  had 
been  a  leader  many  years  before  of  the  Conservative 
group  in  the  Baden  Chamber.  However,  an  ultra- 
Conservative  from  Baden  or  any  other  one  of  the  South 
German  states  is  almost  a  Liberal  as  compared  with  the 
Prussian  members  of  the  feudal  class,  with  their  rigid 
feeUng  of  caste  and  their  intolerance  of  anything  which 
scents  even  faintly  of  popular  government.  This  class, 
standing  knee-deep  in  mihtary  and  feudal  traditions, 
seeks  its  political  ideals  in  the  Prussia  of  the  days  of  the 
Reaction  rather  than  in  the  Germany  of  the  present  day, 
with  its  swift  pulsing  industrial  Ufe  and  far-flung  com- 
merce. Unfortunately  for  Germany's  international  in- 
terests, this  class,  which  stands  so  close  to  the  imperial 
administration,  has  furnished  by  far  the  larger  part  of 
Germany's  diplomatic  representatives. 

German  diplomacy  has  blunders  enough  on  its  shoulders, 
but  the  German  people  themselves  were  largely  respon- 
sible for  the  "sabre  ratthng"  which  became  associated 
with  Germany's  entry  into  every  international  crisis. 
All  —  diplomats,  emperor  and  people  —  seemed  to  have 
something  of  the  uncertain  attitude  of  the  parvenu  who 
is  not  just  sure  of  his  ground.  The  new  power  had 
grown  too  quickly  to  give  either  rulers  or  people  the 
poise  and  self-confidence  possessed  by  those  nations 
which  had  longer  played  a  leading  r61e  in  the  inter- 


78     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE   BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

national  drama.  This  explains  the  lack  of  self-restraint 
and  the  mixture  of  hesitation  and  bravado  so  marked 
during  the  Morocco  affair  and  the  Balkan  wars,  not 
merely  in  the  more  chauvinistic  organs  and  the  misin- 
formed provincial  journals,  but  even  in  such  dignified 
publications  as  the  Kolnische  Zeitung  or  the  MUnchner 
Allgemeine  Zeitung.  The  trouble  lay  in  the  exaggerated 
self-consciousness  which  developed  throughout  all  classes 
in  Germany  during  the  entire  period  which  lay  between 
the  two  wars.  The  easy  conquest  over  France  had 
fostered  the  idea  that  power  is  all  that  counts  in  the 
world  of  nations,  and  the  phenomenal  growth  of  Ger- 
many's trade  and  industry  and  the  overwhelming  suc- 
cess due  to  her  educational  accomplishments,  especially 
in  the  technical  field,  inflated  national  consciousness  to 
the  point  of  egotism.  Our  fathers  were  wont  to  com- 
plain of  British  superiority  of  manner :  the  present 
generation  could  with  justice  complain  of  German 
bumptiousness.  Uninterrupted  success  and  prosperity 
bore  the  same  fruit  as  in  the  days  when  "  Jeshurun  waxed 
fat  and  kicked."  The  German  knew  that  his  nation 
had  the  best  military  system  in  the  world ;  he 
was  fully  aware  that  his  efficient  elementary  schools, 
his  industrial  and  technical  schools,  his  industrial 
and  commercial  organization  and  especially  the  won- 
derful dovetailing  of  industry  and  commerce  with 
higher  education  had  put  the  Fatherland  in  front  of 
the  nations  of  the  world  as  regards  the  efficiency  of 
its  units ;  while  a  remarkable  sense  of  discipline  and 
subordination,  begotten  of  the  German  character  and 
developed  through  centuries  of  efficient  schooHng, 
made  it  possible  to  forge  these  units  into  a  national 
machine  of  rare  efficiency.  The  German  felt  and  knew 
all  of  this  and  rejoiced  therein  until  he  developed  an 
egotism  which  blinded  him  in  a  measure  to  his  own 
national  weaknesses  and  to  the  strong  sides  of  his  neigh- 
bors.    He  grew  to  regard  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  the 


EXPANSION   AND   AMBITIONS  79 

Frenchman  was  decadent,  the  Italian  lazy  and  corrupt 
and  the  Russian  an  ignorant  barbarian ;  and  he  j&nally 
came  to  the  point  where  the  British  empire  was  an 
insult  to  his  own  powers.  He  loved  to  point  out  the 
mistakes  of  the  administration  in  Egypt  and  India 
and  to  ridicule  the  British  army,  made  up,  not  hke  the 
German  army,  of  "a  people  in  arms,"  but  of  "hirehngs" 
who  rented  their  fighting  abilities.  His  journals  con- 
stantly pictured  the  British  citizen  as  a  tradesman-soul 
without  love  of  honor  and  devotion  to  Fatherland,  and 
held  up  to  their  readers  the  monstrous  fabric  of  the 
British  empire  as  an  anachronism.  A  consideration  of 
his  own  efficient  methods  con\dnced  the  average  Ger- 
man that  he  was  a  better  teacher,  trainer  and  adminis- 
trator than  the  Briton,  who  lived  in  degenerate  ease  on 
a  capital  gathered  at  a  time  when  England  had  no  com- 
petitors. Paired  with  this  confidence  in  himself  there 
went  a  blind  confidence  in  the  general  staff  and  all 
the  powers  of  his  central  administration  and  an  exu- 
berant optimism  as  to  the  nation's  power  to  meet  any 
crisis. 

The  fact  is  that  in  the  international  family  Germany 
was  still  a  youth,  and  its  youthful  expressions  of  jin- 
goism sounded  often  Hke  our  own  Western  bumptious- 
ness in  the  salad  days  of  the  repubhc.  Thus  the  seizure 
of  Kiao  Chau  in  1897  and  the  expedition  against  the 
Chinese  Boxers  in  1900  were  accompanied  by  an  ex- 
plosion of  national  enthusiasm  as  if  the  imperial  eagle 
had  already  spread  its  claws  over  the  Far  East ;  and  the 
spectacular  visit  of  the  Emperor  to  Tangier  in  1905 
led  to  an  outburst  of  jubilation  which  could  hardly  have 
been  exceeded  if  Germany  had  already  successfully 
annexed  the  southern  half  of  Morocco.  This  bounding 
optimism,  at  once  a  characteristic  of  youth  and  of 
German  romanticism,  led  to  correspondingly  unjustifi- 
able fits  of  depression.  Thus  after  the  Morocco  affair 
the  bitterest  criticism  was  directed  against  the  govern- 


8o     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

ment  for  not  fulfilling  hopes  which  ought  never  to  have 
been  entertained. 

Aside  from  these  exhibitions  of  political  immaturity, 
often  taking  the  form  of  a  dangerous  chauvinism,  Ger- 
many certainly  owed  the  world  no  apology  for  her  mili- 
tary preparations  or  expansive  impulses.  Whatever 
verdict  historians  may  finally  reach  as  to  the  causes  of 
the  European  war  of  1914,  it  is  clear  enough  that  after 
1 87 1  Germany  had  no  choice  save  to  keep  her  matches 
burning,  and  that  if  she  was  to  defend  her  existence  as 
a  nation,  she  must  maintain  a  powerful  army  and  con- 
stantly increase  its  efficiency.  Without  attempting  to 
justify  the  moves  of  German  diplomats  or  the  bluster 
of  German  journals,  it  must  also  be  conceded  that  the 
nation  had  ample  reason  for  the  building  of  a  strong 
fleet,  since  a  glance  at  the  figures  showing  the  German 
movement  of  population  in  the  four  decades  after  the 
Empire  came  into  existence  proves  that  it  was  no  mere 
"land  hunger"  that  provided  the  nation's  expansive 
power.  The  causes  were  in  no  sense  political  ones,  but 
the  outcome  of  stern  social  and  economic  forces.  While 
in  the  period  1876  to  191 1  the  nation's  birthrate  fell  33 
per  cent,  a  much  more  rapid  fall  being  registered  in  the 
large  cities  and  industrial  centres,  this  loss  was  more  than 
compensated  by  a  steady  decrease  in  the  deathrate  as 
a  result  of  improved  social  conditions,  such  as  old  age 
pensions,  accident  insurance,  sick  insurance,  sanitary 
progress  and  the  strenuous  efforts  on  the  part  of  the 
governments  and  private  associations  to  reduce  the 
mortality  rate  of  infants.  At  the  time  the  nations  of 
Europe  went  to  war  in  1914,  the  prospective  surplus 
of  births  over  deaths  in  Germany  was  close  to  850,000 
per  year  and  as  has  been  stated,  statisticians  predicted 
with  confidence  that  by  1925  the  population  of  the 
Fatherland  would  be  well  over  eighty  millions.  Even 
at  this  figure  the  ratio  to  the  square  mile  of  the  entire 
territory  would  be  smaller  than  that  of  Belgium  or 


EXPANSION  AND  AMBITIONS  8i 

England  and  even  less  than  that  then  existing  for  the 
province  of  Westphalia.' 

If  this  enormous  growth  was  to  be  maintained,  the 
additional  mouths  must  be  fed  at  home,  or  they  must 
emigrate.  The  colonies  which  Germany  possessed  were 
not  adapted  either  in  climate  or  economic  conditions  to 
accom.modate  a  large  number  of  immigrants,  nor  did  it 
seem  that  they  would  be  able  to  do  so  for  many  years  to 
come.  Emigration  to  America,  however,  or  to  any  one 
of  the  British  possessions  meant  of  course  that  the 
emigrant  was  lost  as  a  political  dependent  to  the  Father- 
land, and  that  he  soon  ceased  to  have  anything  more  than 
a  very  slight  culture  importance  for  the  German-speak- 
ing world. 

If  this  fast  increasing  population  was  to  live  within 
the  boundary  posts  of  the  empire,  it  must  be  fed  and 
must  seek  its  bread  by  labor.  It  was  evident  to  Ger- 
man statesmen  that  the  German  people  were  rapidly 
reaching  the  position  which  the  British  had  occupied 
for  so  many  years :  they  were  becoming  less  and  less 
able  to  feed  themselves  on  homegrown  products.     Even 

^Population  December  i,  1905,  60,641,489;  December  i,  1910, 
64,925,995;  the  increase  of  population  from  1871  to  1910  was  58.1 
per  cent,  or  from  75.9  to  120  per  square  kilometer.  The  large  cities 
and  industrial  districts  showed  of  course  a  much  larger  growth :  thus 
Berlin  grew  106  per  cent,  the  kingdom  of  Saxony  88  per  cent,  the  Rhine- 
land  99  per  cent  and  the  province  of  Westphalia  132  per  cent.  The 
average  annual  movement  of  population  per  1000  in  the  decades  since 
the  foundation  of  the  Empire  was  as  follows : 

1871-18& 

Birthrate 40-75 

Excess  of  births  over  deaths  .       1 1 .9 

In  the  decade  1901-10  there  was  a  decrease  in  infant  mortality  from 
20.7  to  16.2  per  annum.  The  maximum  excess  of  births  over  deaths 
was  reached  in  1902  (15.6  per  1000) ;  after  that  the  decline  in  the  birth- 
rate became  so  sharp  as  to  alarm  German  national  economists,  bring- 
ing the  rate  of  excess  for  the  years  1911-13  to  a  point  below  the  average 
for  any  decade  since  1871.  Even  at  this  Germany  still  showed  an  ex- 
cess of  births  over  deaths  greater  than  any  first  class  power  except 
Russia.     The  estimated  population  June  30,  1914,  was  67,812,000. 


81-1890 

1891-1900 

1901-1910 

38.2 

37-3 

33-9 

II. 7 

13-9 

143 

82     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETVv^EEN  TWO  WARS 

with  the  most  careful  fostering  of  agriculture  by  pro- 
tective measures,  by  the  recovery  of  waste  land  and  the 
improvement  of  the  means  of  production,  by  the  es- 
tablishment of  land  banks  and  state  assistance  in  the 
colonization  of  small  farmers,  the  importation  of  bread- 
stuffs  mounted  steadily  from  year  to  year.  In  the  period 
1895  to  1905,  while  the  population  of  Germany  increased 
16  per  cent,  all  of  this  fostering  aid  to  agriculture  availed 
to  increase  the  production  of  the  bread  grains,  wheat 
and  rye,  only  8  per  cent.  It  is  plain  that  Germany, 
shut  in  as  she  was  between  neighbors  whose  hostility 
was  only  too  easily  aroused,  had  exactly  the  same  interest 
in  keeping  her  harbors  open  for  the  purpose  of  feeding 
her  people  as  England  had. 

The  eight  hundred  thousand  to  one  million  new  mouths 
which  were  to  be  fed  each  year  must  be  fed  by  labor. 
The  host  of  new  Germans  could  not  find  employment  in 
agriculture.  In  spite  of  all  efforts  to  the  contrary,  the 
number  of  persons  dependent  on  agriculture,  including 
forestry,  diminished  in  the  period  between  the  vocational 
census  of  1895  ^nd  that  of  1907  from  35.8  to  28.6  per 
cent  of  the  whole  population.^  The  entire  future  of 
the  nation  lay  in  the  growth  and  development  of  its 
industries,  in  retaining  its  old  markets  and  finding  new 
ones,  and  thus  the  Emperor's  words,  "Our  future  lies 
on  the  water,"  came  home  to  thinking  Germans  with 
terrific  force.  The  Fatherland  must  be  able  to  insure 
an  open  door  for  its  products  and  an  open  road  for  such 
raw  material  as  could  not  be  found  at  home.  It  must 
be  able  to  protect  the  capital  and  fives  of  its  children 
from  the  greed  of  foreign  officials,  and  it  must  be  able  to 
give  force  to  a  fair  interpretation  of  trade  agreements 
and  to  afford  full  backing  to  its  rapidly  growing  merchant 
marine  in  every  corner  of  the  world  where  misrule  or 

1  In  the  same  period  the  percentage  of  the  total  population  dependent 
on  manufacturing  and  mining  increased  from  35.1  to  42.5,  while  the 
number  dependent  on  trade  and  transportation  grew  from  9.9  to  13.3. 


EXPANSION  AND   AMBITIONS  83 

jealous  trade  rivals  might  bar  the  way.  The  future  of 
Germany  depended  on  peace ;  but  unfortunately  at  the 
present  stage  of  civihzation  peace  can  be  secured  for  a 
great  power  only  by  submission  to  the  stronger  or  by 
the  abihty  to  defend  itself  sturdily.  "We  Germans," 
said  Bismarck,  "must  be  either  hammer  or  anvil." 
Spoken  of  the  nation's  situation  in  the  centre  of  Europe 
between  hostile  powers,  it  was  no  less  true  in  the  world 
overseas,  where  conflicting  political  interests  and  hostile 
trade  rivals  stand  ever  ready  to  prey  upon  him  who  is 
not  ready  to  defend  himself. 

The  Germans  had  become  convinced  that  their  Hfe 
interests  demanded  the  building  and  maintenance  of  a 
strong  fleet.  But  a  fleet  without  coahng  depots  and 
wireless  stations  is  useless  for  the  protection  of  overseas 
interests  in  case  of  war  with  any  nation  that  does  possess 
these  assets.  It  was  clearly  foreseen  that  without 
them  England  would  speedily  whip  German  commerce 
from  the  seas,  as  actually  happened  immediately  after 
the  declaration  of  war  in  August  1914.  It  is  no  wonder 
then  that  Germany  sought  long  and  eagerly  for  suitable 
naval  bases  on  the  various  highways  of  commerce. 
It  was  the  ambition  to  secure  just  such  a  point  on  the 
west  coast  of  Morocco  as  much  as  any  desire  for  terri- 
torial expansion  in  the  Moorish  kingdom  that  drove 
the  government  to  its  aggressive  poUcy  between  1904 
and  1 9 1 1 .  The  failure  of  this  policy  the  Germans  charged 
with  justice  to  England's  reckoning,  and  it  was  one  of  a 
long  list  of  checks  which  they  wrote  upon  the  British 
score.  National  feehng  boiled  at  the  thought  that  the 
British  octopus,  secure  in  the  possession  of  numerous 
strategic  points  on  the  African  and  Asiatic  coasts, 
should  regard  the  ocean  ways  that  encircle  these  con- 
tinents as  her  own  private  waters  and  be  able  to  block 
Germany's  moves  to  the  acquisition  of  any  commercial 
stepping-stone  which  might  later  be  converted  into  a 
station  of  war,     . 


84     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

If  the  political  expansion  of  Germany  in  Africa  and 
the  Far  East  had  reached  a  point  where  it  must  halt 
before  the  British  "Thus  far  and  no  farther  ! "  any  move- 
ment toward  acquiring  a  foothold  in  America  v/as  as 
effectually  checked  by  the  Monroe  doctrine.  It  seemed 
indeed  that  German  patriots  must  resign  their  desire 
for  colonies  where  the  constantly  growing  population 
might  find  an  outlet  without  being  lost  entirely  to  the 
German  name  and  culture.  The  more  gratifying  it 
was,  then,  that  the  question  of  emigration  had  ceased 
to  be  a  pressing  one.  The  best  blood  of  Germany  no 
longer  went  to  spend  itself  in  building  up  English 
nations,  for  with  the  growth  of  German  industries  during 
the  decades  following  1890  the  economic  forces  which 
drove  young  Germans  away  from  the  Fatherland  ceased 
to  exist.  A  comparison  of  the  figures  after  1893  shows 
how  this  decrease  in  emigration  went  hand  in  hand  with 
the  growth  of  industry,  until  before  the  beginiiing  of 
the  present  century  the  stream  of  German  youth 
flowing  outward  through  the  ports  trickled  so  slowly 
that  the  loss  was  more  than  made  up  by  Slavic  immi- 
grants whom  the  industrial  progress  of  Germany  was 
drawing  into  the  Eastern  marches.^  It  was  naturally 
a  source  of  pride  to  German  patriots  that  they  had 
ceased  to  export  men  and  women,  and  were  now  ex- 
porting the  manufactured  products  which  enabled 
them  to  feed  and  clothe  their  increased  population  at 
home.  In  1908,  and  again  in  1 911,  the  writer  talked  with 
people  in  various  parts  of  Germany  regarding  opportuni- 
ties in  America,  and  met  in  place  of  the  old  romantic 
longing  for  the  land  of  unlimited  possibiHties,  always  the 
same  answer:  "We  are  better  off  here!  We  are 
quite  contented ;  America  doesn't  mean  to  us  what  it 

^For  each  1000  persons  there  emigrated  in  1893,  i-76;  in  1903. 
.62;  in  1913  less  than  .39.  The  total  emigration  for  the  year  last  named 
was  but  25,843.  Since  the  middle  nineties  Germany  has  become  an 
"  immigrant  country." 


EXPANSION  AND  AMBITIONS  85 

once  did."  The  causes  assigned  for  this  in  some  cases 
reflected  sharply  on  the  flaws  in  our  government  and 
especially  on  our  apparent  helplessness  in  solving  the 
problems  of  sound  banking,  adequate  control  of  great 
industry  and  honest  municipal  government,  but  beneath 
it  all  lay  a  great  confidence  in  the  industrial  future  of 
Germany  and  in  the  growth  of  a  liberal  spirit  in  gov- 
ernment, without  which  no  real  patriotism  can  exist  in 
a  civilized  modern  state.  Outside  of  the  United  States 
and  the  British  possessions,  the  greatest  number  of  Ger- 
mans had  found  their  way  to  Brazil  and  Argentina, 
where  in  the  midst  of  a  Romance  people  they  main- 
tained and  bid  fair  to  maintain  forever  their  language 
and  national  culture. 

Unfortunately  these  Germans  were  lost  to  the  empire 
politically,  nor  had  Germany  been  able  to  acquire 
colonies  where  the  cKmate  and  other  physical  conditions 
were  favorable  to  the  development  of  a  large  population 
of  German  stock.  The  nation  naturally  entered  the 
race  for  colonies  late.  Not  until  1879  did  Germany 
first  break  into  the  group  of  colonial  powers,  and  then 
only  mildly  through  the  acquisition  of  a  marine  station 
in  the  Samoan  Islands.  Very  gradually  and  in  the 
face  of  the  bitter  opposition  of  the  Conservative  and 
Radical-Liberal  forces  the  colonial  idea  took  root  and 
grew.  In  1884  considerable  possessions  were  brought 
under  the  protection  of  the  black-white-red  banner  in 
the  Togo  and  Kamerun  districts  of  western  Africa  and 
a  vast  tract  in  southwest  x^frica.  Hamburg  merchants 
had  led  the  way  in  Samoa  and  West  Africa;  in  1885 
Karl  Peters,  a  rough  and  ready  explorer  with  the  soul 
of  a  Cortez.  finally  brought  the  East  African  district 
under  a  German  protectorate.  At  the  same  time  a  vig- 
orous expansion  went  on  in  the  South  Seas,  where  in  1884  a 
German  protectorate  was  extended  over  the  northeastern 
part  of  New  Guinea,  —  later  baptized  as  Kaiser  Wilhelm's 
Land,  —  and  the  neighboring  Bismarck  Archipelago,  to 


86     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

which  were  soon  added  the  Marshall  Islands  and  a  part 
of  the  Solomon  group.  Finally,  by  a  purchase-treaty 
with  Spain  in  1899,  the  CaroHnes  were  brought  under 
the  empire's  South  Sea  Protectorate. 

Bismarck  and  the  men  of  the  "old  course"  entered 
upon  the  acquisition  of  colonies  with  much  hesitation. 
They  had  won  their  spurs  and  celebrated  their  triumphs 
in  a  Europe  which  was  still  the  Europe  of  the  Congress  of 
Vienna,  and  especially  after  the  Berlin  Congress  of 
1878  German  diplomats  had  no  desire  to  add  further 
to  the  complications  which  foreboded  through  the 
renaissance  of  France  and  the  aggressiveness  of  Russia. 
The  commerce  of  Germany  could  not,  however,  be  held 
in  leash;  the  lustily  growing  national  spirit  followed, 
and  Bismarck  was  carried  along  in  spite  of  himself. 
His  intention  was  to  establish  in  the  colonies  the  rule 
of  the  merchant  rather  than  the  despotism  of  the  bureau- 
crat. Unfortunately  this  was  not  done,  and  the  first 
thirty  years  of  German  colonial  history  left  a  record  of 
failure  through  a  lack  of  commercial  initiative  on  the 
part  of  German  business  men  and  an  unfortunate  stingi- 
ness in  the  treatment  of  the  colonies  by  the  Reichstag. 
The  immense  stretches  of  western  and  southwestern 
Africa,  peopled  by  a  savage  and  freedom-loving  people, 
like  the  Hereros  in  Southwest  Africa,  were  an  excellent 
though  painful  school  of  experie'nce  for  German  admin- 
istration and  legislation.  The  mechanical  transference 
of  the  Prussian  bureaucratic  system  to  Damara  Land 
and  to  the  equatorial  villages  of  East  Africa  led  to  bloody 
insurrections,  which  in  1904-07  threatened  the  entire 
future  of  the  Southwest  African  colony.  The  lack  of 
experience  in  administration  and  organization  in  the  col- 
onies was  matched  by  a  lack^of  legislative  experience  at 
home  :  the  old  Bismarckian  prejudice  against  all  overseas 
adventures  descended  to  the  "little  Germans"  of  cer- 
tain Radical  groups  and  to  the  Social  Democrats.  _  It 
was  not  that  Germans  lacked  the  gift  for  colonization : 


EXPANSION  AND   AMBITIONS  87 

German  historians  complain  bitterly  that  the  children  of 
the  Fatherland  have  formed  the  Kulturdunger,  —  have 
fertilized  civilization,  —  for  the  whole  world  overseas. 
It  is  true  that  Germany's  colonies  did  not  come  directly 
as  the  result  of  trade  or  settlement ;  but  it  must  be 
noted  that  England's  colonies  in  the  torrid  zone  did  not 
come  that  way  either,  but  were  the  outcome  of  a  desire 
to  anticipate  trade  and  especially  to  block  the  advance 
of  the  Romance  peoples.  But  England's  colonial  9,d- 
ministration  is  the  result  of  centuries  of  apprentice- 
ship. Out  of  a  wealth  of  experience  with  all  sorts  of 
dependent  peoples  she  evolved  the  system  which  hides 
a  firm  control  under  the  appearance  of  self-government, 
the  mailed  fist  under  the  silken  glove,  a  system  that 
finds  its  best  illustration  in  the  administration  of  India. 

The  Germans  had  had  no  such  experience.  The 
government  at  home  was  a  bureaucracy,  for  which  the 
model  had  always  been  the  Prussian  system,  developed 
under  a  series  of  great  drill  masters  since  the  Great 
Elector.  Officials  trained  in  the  iron  ideals  of  the 
Prussian  school  were  transferred  to  the  colonies  and 
called  on  to  face  conditions  which  called  for  an  original- 
ity and  adaptabihty  that  the  military  system  at  home 
had  given  them  no  opportunity  to  develop.  In  this 
difficult  position  they  were  further  hampered  by  a  lack 
of  understanding  of  conditions  by  their  superiors  at 
home  and  the  narrow  parsimony  on  the  part  of  the  Reichs- 
tag. No  policy  could  be  less  adapted  for  deahng  with 
the  children  of  nature  in  the  Cameroons  and  Damara 
Land  and  East  Africa ;  and  the  blood  and  treasure 
which  had  to  be  expended  in  Africa  in  the  first  decade 
of  the  twentieth  century  purchased  very  high-priced 
experience. 

This  experience,  however,  slowly  educated  the  in- 
dividual German  to  a  sense  of  the  responsibiUties  of 
overseas  dominion.  Once  thoroughly  awakened  in  a 
small  circle  of  ardent  patriots,  the  interest  in  the  colonies 


88     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE   BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

was  sytematically  spread  by  those  methodical  and 
thorough,  if  somewhat  pedantic,  means  so  characteristic 
of  the  German  nature.  The  Colonial  Society,  founded 
in  1882,  by  its  large  membership  ^  and  numerous  publica- 
tions, by  the  lectures  and  addresses  given  under  its 
auspices  and  by  the  unique  Colonial  Museum  in  BerUn, 
did  much  to  educate  Germans  to  a  broader  view  of 
colonial  expansion.  Every  step  of  progress  was  taken 
only  after  a  fight  with  the  spirit  of  ignorance  and  prej- 
udice in  colonial  matters,  which  was  the  natural  result 
of  Germany's  previous  isolation  from  all  overseas 
affairs.  Emperor  William  took  the  lead,  bringing  with 
him  the  active  support  of  the  higher  aristocracy;  little 
by  little  even  the  Bavarian  and  Swabian  shopkeeper  and 
the  East  Prussian  landholder  began  to  raise  their  eyes 
to  the  field  of  Germany's  future  beyond  the  confines  of 
Central  Europe.  In  spite  of  the  "little  Germans"  and 
the  reckless  rhodomontades  of  the  Pan-Germans,  the 
wave  of  enthusiasm  for  political  expansion  beyond  the 
seas  to  keep  pace  with  Germany's  industrial  growth  rose 
higher  and  higher.  A  natural  development  was  the 
building  of  the  fleet,  so  carefully  fostered  and  directed  by 
the  Emperor  and  his  advisers,  which  soon  infused  into 
the  nation's  public  life  a  spirit  of  hopefulness  and  en- 
thusiasm for  national  interests  overseas  which  no  bun- 
gling diplomats  and  no  disappointments  could  ever 
halt.  A  strong  evidence  of  the  vital  interest  of  Germany 
in  world  affairs  was  to  be  found  in  the  books  and  pam- 
phlets treating  of  some  phase  of  the  Fatherland's  interests 
beyond  the  seas,  which  crowded  the  bookshops  in  ever 
increasing  numbers.  In  1900,  when  German  troops 
were  sent  to  China  under  Count  Waldersee  to  assist  in  the 
suppression  of  the  Boxer  outbreak,  there  appeared  a 
perfect  flood  of  literature  bearing  on  the  expedition; 
and  in  every  periodical  of  metropoHs  or  village  the 
wondering  burgher  could  read  the  details  of  the  Father- 
*  It  had  in  1912  an  enrolment  of  41,000  subscribing  members. 


EXPANSION  AND  AMBITIONS  89 

land's  cooperation  in  the  distant  East,  from  the  Em- 
peror's ringing  valedictory  to  Count  Waldersee  down  to 
the  last  detail  of  the  equipment  of  the  individual 
soldier.  In  1910  and  191 1  South  Morocco  was  the  sub- 
ject of  numerous  pamphlets,  containing  excellent  maps 
and  registering  all  sorts  of  valuable  information,  col- 
lected and  sifted  for  popular  consumption. 

This  longing  for  political  influence  overseas,  this 
ardent  desire  to  participate  in  the  government  of  non- 
Caucasian  races  and  to  see  the  standard  of  the  nation 
float  where  German  industry  and  commerce  were  con- 
stantly winning  fresh  laurels  in  the  end  completely 
mastered  a  part  of  the  German  people.  Consciously 
or  unconsciously  it  came  to  dominate  the  thoughts  of 
the  younger  atid  more  progressive  element,  rising  stronger 
after  every  crisis  hke  the  Morocco  crisis  of  191 1  or 
the  Balkan  crisis  of  191 2-13.  Scratch  a  German  and 
you  will  find  a  romanticist,  and  it  was  not  only  the  Pan- 
Germanists,  fired  by  the  growth  of  the  nation's  naval, 
military  and  industrial  power,  who  drew  an  analogy  be- 
tween the  present  empire  and  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
of  the  German  Nation  under  Henry  VI  or  Frederick  II, 
when,  nominally  at  least,  the  imperial  eagles  held  sway 
from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Straits  of  Malta. 

There  was  this  same  mixture  of  romanticism  and  prac- 
tical politics  in  the  trend  of  German  hopes  towards  the 
Near  East.  The  lure  of  the  Orient  with  its  unchangeable 
stately  picturesqueness  threw  something  of  the  same 
magic  spell  over  the  case-hardened  capitalists  of  Cologne 
and  Hamburg  as  it  had  over  the  mediaeval  knights  who 
followed  Frederick  Barbarossa  over  the  sands  of  the 
CiHcian  desert.  Emperor  William  himself  in  the  course 
of  his  travels  felt  drawn  ever  and  again  toward  the 
Mediterranean.  In  1906  he  purchased  the  beautiful  es- 
tate of  the  late  Empress  Elizabeth  of  Austria  on  the 
island  of  Corfu,  whither  he  began  to  make  annual  visits. 
It  was  partly  this  romantic  trend  of  the  German  mind 


90     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

and  partly  the  growing  necessity  for  securing  new  avenues 
of  outlet  for  German  trade,  avenues  which  could  be  de- 
fended only  by  checking  Russian  plans  in  the  Levant, 
which  brought  about  German  friendship  for  Turkey. 
Abdul  Hamid,  deposed  in  1909,  was  eager  for  support 
against  Russian  pressure  from  without  and  Slavic  and 
Macedonian  unrest  within  the  Balkans,  and  throughout 
his  infamous  reign  he  leaned  heavily  on  German  and 
Austrian  support.  A  Prussian  officer,  the  gifted  Kolmar 
von  der  Goltz,  was  called  to  Constantinople  and  re- 
mained from  1883  to  1895  in  charge  of  the  reorganization 
of  the  Turkish  army.  The  Armenian  massacres,  which 
aroused  the  conscience  of  England  on  numerous  occa- 
sions and  in  1895  brought  intervention  from  England, 
France  and  Russia,  evoked  no  feehng  of  hostility  toward 
the  Turkish  regime  from  Germany,  a  curious  illustra- 
tion of  the  way  in  which  selfish  poHtical  considerations 
may  influence  the  most  elementary  expressions  of  human- 
ity. Every  German  felt  that  to  Germany  as  well  as  to 
Austria  the  maintenance  of  the  status  in  Turkey  was  a 
necessity ;  and  hopes  of  political  and  industrial  advan- 
tage in  Asia  Minor  blinded  the  eyes  of  pubHcists  and 
lamed  the  arms  of  humanitarians  even  during  the  worst 
days  of  Abdul  Hamid.  Thoroughly  romantic  was  the 
visit  of  Emperor  WilHam  to  Jerusalem  in  1808,  when 
the  German  papers  delighted  to  draw  parallels  with 
the  crusading  heroes  from  Godfrey  to  Frederick  II. 
This  triumphal  progress,  which  was  accompanied  by  a 
visit  to  Constantinople,  renewed  the  bonds  between 
German  and  Turk  and  made  the  way  easier  for  German 
capital  in  Asia  Minor.  Just  ten  years  later,  in  1908, 
the  Young  Turk  revolution  gave  a  check  to  German 
influence  in  Turkey  from  which  it  was  slow  to  recover. 
The  Young  Turks  had  been  trained  in  British  constitu- 
tional methods,  and  for  years  some  of  them  had  found 
asylum  and  financial  assistance  in  London.  That  their 
opposition  to  Germany  did  not  assume  even  more  acute 


EXPANSION   AND  AMBITIONS  91 

form  was  due  largely  to  the  clever  diplomacy  of  Baron 
Marschall  von  Bieberstein,  German  ambassador  at 
Constantinople  after  1897  (cf.  page  77),  who  until  his 
departure  in  191 1  did  much  to  reorganize  and  renew 
German  influence  on  the  Golden  Horn.  The  Italian- 
Turkish  war  put  Germany  in  a  difficult  position  as  be- 
tween her  ally  and  Turkey,  but  the  German  papers  by 
their  suspicious  and  envious  attitude  toward  Italy  did 
much  to  remove  Turkish  prejudice. 

The  same  press  and,  indeed,  the  Berlin  government, 
too,  misjudged  Turkey's  military  strength.  Neither  ap- 
pears to  have  doubted  on  the  outbreak  of  the  first 
Balkan  War  in  191 2  that  the  Ottoman  power  would  be 
able  to  defend  itself  against  the  Balkan  League.  Yet, 
when  the  Turkish  debacle  came  and  the  Bulgarian 
guns  were  thundering  at  the  Chatalja  defenses  of 
Constantinople,  Germany  could  do  nothing  to  aid  the 
Turks,  since  all  of  her  influence  was  engaged  in  pro- 
tecting her  Austrian  ally  from  the  threatened  Slavic 
advance.  In  the  following  year,  however,  with  the 
first  steps  toward  the  rehabihtation  of  the  Turkish 
army,  the  Sultan's  government  called  in  German  aid. 
Enver  Bey,  who  had  vaulted  into  power  with  the  crash 
which  followed  the  crumbhng  of  Turkey's  defenses,  had 
in  common  with  other  Young  Turk  associates  imphcit 
faith  in  the  German  mihtary  system.  At  the  call  of 
the  Sultan's  government  General  Liman  von  Sanders 
and  a  large  staff  of  subordinate  officers  were  allowed  to 
resign  from  the  German  army  and  enter  the  Turkish 
service,  to  begin  immediately  that  thorough  and  effi- 
cient reorganization  which  less  than  two  years  later 
steeled  the  Turkish  armies  to  their  successful  defense  of 
the  Dardanelles  and  the  hinterland  from  the  Anglo- 
French  attack. 

It  was,  then,  as  coworker  and  heir  of  the  Turk  that 
the  German  hoped  to  find  outlet  for  a  part  of  his 
surplus  political  and  commercial  energy.     Asia  Minor 


92     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

and  Mesopotamia,  with  a  heterogeneous  and  in  part 
very  energetic  population,  have  great  natural  resources 
and  only  wait  the  touch  of  European  capital  to  awaken 
to  great  wealth.  Germany  had  long  recognized  this, 
and  her  leverage  at  the  court  of  the  Sultan  was  early 
brought  to  bear  in  the  effort  to  secure  a  foothold  here. 
She  regarded  this  field  as  peculiarly  hers:  hence  the 
clever  flattery  of  Abdul  Hamid  through  so  many  years, 
hence  the  failure  to  cooperate  with  the  other  European 
powers  in  their  protests  against  the  brutalities  of  Turkish 
rule  and  their  efforts  to  assist  the  Hellenic  people  in 
Crete  and  elsewhere,  hence  the  hostile  attitude  of  the 
German  press  against  Italian  occupation  of  the  islands 
of  the  iEgean  in  191 2  and  the  eager  championship  of  the 
Turkish  cause  by  the  same  papers  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  first  Balkan  war.  German  efforts  were  crowned 
with  preliminary  success,  and  the  peaceful  penetration 
of  AnatoHa  by  German  capital  went  on  apace.  Abdul 
Hamid  granted  German  capitaUsts  a  concession  for  the 
Anatolian  Railway,  which  was  to  penetrate  the  wild 
gorges  of  the  Taurus  Mountains  and  connect  Korua  with 
Adana  near  the  Gulf  of  Alexandretta.  British  capi- 
talists, it  is  said,  would  wilhngly  have  built  this  railway 
without  guarantee ;  the  clever  German  diplomats  suc- 
ceeded in  obtaining  from  the  Turkish  government  a 
per-kilometer  guarantee  for  the  maintenance  of  the  line, 
which  could  only  by  degrees  become  a  paying  invest- 
ment. 

By  the  terms  of  a  later  concession  the  Germans  were 
eventually  to  continue  the  railway  eastward  toward 
Mosul  and  eventually  down  the  valley  of  the  Tigris 
to  Bagdad  and  on  to  the  Persian  Gulf.  The  dormant 
romanticism  in  the  German  soul  was  thoroughly 
awakened  by  this  adventurous  undertaking  on  the 
trail  of  Alexander  the  Great.  The  whole  apparatus 
of  the  Arabian  Nights  and  of  Omar  Khayyam  passed 
before  the  bewitched  eyes  of  the  grandsons  of  those 


EXPANSION  AND  AMBITIONS  93 

Germans  who  had  dreamed  over  Goethe's  Westostlicher 
Divan  and  Bodenstedt's  Songs  of  Mirza  Schaffy.  With 
this  romantic  enthusiasm  there  was  blended  in  the 
practical  soul  of  the  modern  German  a  very  real  ap- 
preciation of  the  ultimate  business  value  of  this  con- 
cession and  its  possible  political  consequences.  The 
whole  affair  illustrated  to  some  extent,  however,  the 
timidity  of  German  capital  in  overseas  enterprises. 
The  building  of  the  road  was  delayed  by  the  Young 
Turk  revolution  of  1908,  which  boosted  British  stock 
at  Constantinople  and  made  the  German  position 
difiScult;  and  with  the  clever  conquest  of  these  hin- 
drances, the  financial  question  came  to  the  fore.  The 
construction  of  the  road  was  attended  by  great  engineer- 
ing difficulties  and  uncertainties,  the  Turkish  govern- 
ment showed  its  usual  vacillating  policy,  and  like  every 
other  semi-official  business  undertaking  in  the  Ottoman 
Empire,  the  whole  project  was  surrounded  by  a  nimbus 
of  mystery.  It  was  usual  in  German  prints  to  blame 
British  jealousy  for  failure  to  enlist  foreign  capital  in 
the  enterprise :  it  would  seem,  however,  that  it  was 
another  case  of  the  lack  of  boldness  and  faith  in  the 
prosecution  of  overseas  undertakings  which  had  caused 
German  capital  to  lose  so  many  races  for  foreign  advan- 
tage ever  since  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when 
the  Hansa  cities  of  the  North  Sea  negligently  resigned 
to  England  and  Holland  their  share  in  the  conquest  of 
the  colonial  world.^ 

That  in  this  case  the  prize  was  worth  struggling  for 
and  that  Germany  had  already  won  a  great  lead  in  the 

^  The  first  concession  for  the  Anatolian  Railway  was  granted  the 
Deutsche  Bank  in  1888,  and  the  line  was  completed  as  far  as  Konia  in 
1896.  The  extension  to  Bagdad,  with  valuable  shipping  and  mining 
rights,  was  put  into  the  hands  of  a  syndicate  of  bankers  in  1902.  The 
work  of  construction  went  forward  in  sections,  and  by  1914  nearly  all 
of  the  line  between  the  Taurus  mountains  and  the  Euphrates,  including 
a  branch  to  Aleppo,  had  been  finished ;  but  the  grades  and  tunnels 
through  the  Taurus  and  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  line  east  of  the 
Euphrates  crossing  were  yet  to  be  built. 


94     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

race  toward  the  basin  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  is 
evidenced  by  the  efforts  which  were  made  by  her  rival 
in  this  field  to  checkmate  her  advances.  England  years 
ago  assured  herself  of  the  friendship  of  the  Sheik  of 
Koweit  and  otherwise  made  her  influence  strongly  felt 
on  the  Persian  Gulf  in  order  to  check  Russian  advances 
to  deep  water  through  Persia.  After  the  Japanese  war, 
when  the  growth  of  Germany's  navy  began  to  cause 
uneasiness  across  the  North  Sea,  England  joined  forces 
with  her  old  Muscovite  enemy  and  divided  Persia  into 
spheres  of  influence,  securing  for  herself  the  southern 
half.  Thus  she  was  braced  on  a  powerful  pohtical 
basis  to  meet  the  German  commercial  advance  into  Meso- 
potamia. British  statesmen  are  accustomed  to  cal- 
culate a  long  way  in  advance,  and  they  have  for  many 
years  looked  with  yearning  toward  the  time  when  a 
string  of  contiguous  provinces  under  English  protec- 
torate should  connect  India  with  Egypt.  It  was  only 
the  fear  that  Germany  might  some  day  steal  a  link  from 
this  chain  that  induced  British  statesmen  to  back  up 
the  Russians  in  driving  out  Mr.  Morgan  Shuster,  the 
successful  American  agent  of  the  Persian  treasury  in 
191 1,  flinging  to  the  winds  the  traditions  of  Bdtish  fair 
play  and  British  liberahty  toward  a  dependent  people, 
and  it  was  only  the  fear  of  Germany  and  the  desire  for 
Russia's  friendship  at  any  cost  that  induced  British 
public  opinion  to  back  up  the  action  of  the  government. 
The  eventual  control  over  the  port  terminus  of  the 
Bagdad  Railway  and  the  collision  of  British  and  German 
interests  on  the  Persian  Gulf  formed  the  subject  of 
negotiations  with  the  Turkish  government  after  191 1 
and  between  London  and  Berlin  in  191 3.  The  spirit 
shown  by  both  sides  in  these  negotiations  seemed  to 
point,  as  has  been  said,  to  a  new  era  in  the  relations 
between  Great  Britain  and  Germany  in  which  a  spirit 
of  conciliation  should  dominate  both  sides.  A  prelimi- 
nary agreement  was  reached  in  May  191 3,  by  which  the 


EXPANSION  AND  AMBITIONS  95 

German  right  to  financial  and  economic  control  of  the 
line  as  far  as  Bagdad  was  assured.  Between  Bagdad 
and  Bassora  the  line  was  to  be  internationalized,  Great 
Britain  and  Germany  each  having  representatives  on 
the  governing  board.  Bassora  is,  however,  not  a  deep- 
water  terminus;  and  by  her  arrangement  with  the 
Sheik  of  Koweit,  Great  Britain  reserved  to  herself  the 
right  to  control  the  hne  to  the  port  on  the  Persian 
Gulf.^  The  German  public  received  the  announcement 
of  this  agreement  with  mixed  feelings,  although  it  was 
generally  conceded  that  Great  Britain  had  shown  a 
fair  spirit  of  compromise.  As  yet  unregulated  was  the 
important  question  as  to  which  of  the  two  nations 
should  supply  capital  and  enterprise  for  doing  in  the 
valley  of  the  Euphrates  what  Great  Britain  has  done  in 
the  valley  of  the  Nile,  since  the  rivers  of  Mesopotamia 
need  only  the  restraining  hand  of  modern  science  to 
make  their  valleys  blossom  as  the  rose. 

The  contrast  between  Germany's  commercial  and  po- 
Htical  position  outside  of  Europe  was  a  matter  that 
riveted  the  attention  of  German  patriots  more  and  more 
as  the  passing  years  of  the  twentieth  century  brought 
ever  greater  industrial  success.  They  saw  their  country 
grown  by  leaps  and  bounds  until  it  was  the  second  ex- 
porting nation  of  the  world  and  the  second  in  the  carry- 
ing trade.  They  told  themselves  with  justice  that  this 
had  not  been  accomplished  by  treading  under  foot  the 
rights  of  any  people,  but  in  the  face  of  a  more  or  less 
hostile  world  by  patient  labor,  high  technical  training 
and  self-denial.  They  saw  themselves  the  object  of 
suspicion  on  the  part  of  all  of  the  great  powers  except 
Austria,  as  they  firmly  believed  for  no  other  cause  than 
the  legitimate  growth  of  German  population  and  trade. 
In  the  days  of  their  power  they  were  obliged  to  look  on 
while  the  Mediterranean  lands  were  divided  out  among 
their  rivals,  while  the  utmost  efforts  of  German  states- 

^  The  distance  from  Bassora  (Basra)  to  the  port  at  Koweit  is  85  miles. 


96     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

men  could  secure  for  the  Fatherland  nothing  more  than 
savage  stretches  of  equatorial  Africa.  Their  merchant 
fleet  carried  aloft  almost  solely  the  pennants  of  British 
and  American  lands,  and  their  battle  fleets  in  girdling 
the  earth  must  fill  their  bunkers  and  file  their  cable- 
grams almost  entirely  under  foreign  guns.  And  when 
they  joined  in  the  predatory  race  for  the  control  of 
minor  peoples,  they  saw  themselves  branded  as  dis- 
turbers of  the  peace.  No  proud  nation  can  endure  to 
be  told  that  its  province  is  science,  Hterature  and  philos- 
ophy, and  not  government,  and  that  its  over-production 
in  sons  and  daughters  must  enlist  their  abihties  under 
foreign  flags,  where  success  can  be  bought  only  by  the 
surrender  of  native  language  and  culture.  And  if  one 
argued  that  the  Scandinavian  lands  and  Mediterranean 
powers  and  other  nations  proud  of  their  independence 
are  content  to  carry  on  their  commerce  and  prosper 
regardless  of  the  fact  that  England  rules  the  seas,  the 
German  would  answer  that  his  position  and  responsibil- 
ities in  the  world  had  grown  to  be  such  that  he  could 
not  do  business  overseas  on  England's  sufferance,  but 
on  the  contrary  they  gave  him  full  as  good  a  right  to 
sea  rule  as  England  could  claim.  The  desire  for  power, 
it  must  be  admitted,  is  as  essential  a  part  of  an  ambitious 
nation  as  of  an  ambitious  man.  Much  has  been  said 
and  written  of  the  philosophical  theories  which  were 
supposed  to  lie  at  the  bottom  of  Germany's  ambitions, 
and  the  names  of  the  historian  Treitschke  and  the 
philosopher  Nietzsche  have  been  flung  about,  as  though 
the  impulse  to  power,  felt  alike  by  German  manufacturer 
and  tradesman,  landholder  and  artisan,  financier  and 
statesman  and  soldier,  were  based  on  some  abstract 
theory  of  the  rights  of  the  state  and  the  morals  of  con- 
quest; and  much  has  been  said  of  Pan- Germanism,  as 
though  a  comparatively  small  group  of  noisy  theorists 
could  fill  a  nation  of  peace-loving,  hard-working  builders 
with  a  devouring  lust  of  conquest.    As  a  matter  of 


EXPANSION  AND  AMBITIONS  97 

fact,  what  foreign  critics  have  often  called  German 
militarism  and  Pan- Germanism, is  but  an  exceedingly 
primitive  impulse,  found  in  every  vigorous  nation  as 
well  as  every  vigorous  indixadual :  the  determination  to 
be  independent  and  to  expand  the  circumference  of  rule 
as  his  powers  permit. 

In  view  of  all  of  this,  one  can  appreciate  why  the 
question  of  army  and  naN^y  armament  took  with  the 
passing  years  such  deep  hold,  not  merely  upon  the  so- 
called  ruling  classes,  but  upon  the  middle  and  lower 
classes  as  well.  In  the  Reichstag  of  191 2  only  the  So- 
cial Democratic  members  and  the  anti-national  groups 
voted  against  the  increases  in  the  army  and  navy,  and 
in  1913,  despite  some  perfunctory  Socialist  opposition, 
practically  the  whole  nation  welcomed  the  Defense 
Bill,  with  its  tremendous  sacrifices,  as  insurance  that  the 
Fatherland  would  be  permitted  to  hold  what  had  been 
won  and  look  with  hopeful  eyes  to  the  future.  Indeed, 
even  the  most  prosaic  of  burghers  in  his  village  shop  in 
Thuringia  or  Swabia  began  to  dream  of  fleets  and  con- 
quests overseas.  The  enthusiasm  which  his  father  had 
felt  for  a  Germany  at  last  united,  the  twentieth  century 
German  felt  in  his  hours  of  romantic  dreaming  for  a 
Germany  as  mistress  of  the  seas  and  arbiter  of  the 
nations.  This  enthusiasm  had  its  ebbs  as  well  as  its 
floods,  but  the  floods  rose  higher  each  time.  It  had 
gradually  invaded  and  gripped  all  classes  in  the  empire, 
and  began  to  make  of  the  German  a  hardened  and 
seasoned  cosmopolitan  in  the  British  sense,  a  cosmopoli- 
tan whose  realism  was  warmed  by  a  deep  romantic 
enthusiasm  for  Germany's  glory.  It  had  gradually 
transformed  the  Philistine  burgher  of  the  eighties, 
who  could  not  raise  his  eyes  above  the  narrow  horizon 
of  central  Europe,  into  a  citizen  of  the  world. 


PART    II 

THE   EMPIRE  AT   HOME 


CHAPTER  V 

Personal  Government  and  Parliamentary 

Rule 

The  German  empire  has  the  advantage  or  disadvan- 
tage of  working  under  a  written  constitution.  This 
constitution  can  be  amended  by  vote  of  the  two  organs 
of  legislation,  the  Bundesrat,  the  Federal  Council,  and 
the  Reichstag,  the  Imperial  Diet,  with  the  approval 
of  the  Emperor.  Bismarck,  who  in  1871  practically 
took  over  the  constitution  of  the  North  German  Con- 
federation for  the  newly  bom  empire,  had  sought  in 
that  instrument  to  create  a  balance  between  the  Em- 
peror, the  dynasties  and  the  people  which  should  insure 
to  each  of  the  three  a  proper  share  in  government.  It 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  new  German  constitution 
emerged  from  two  decades  of  sharp  reaction  against 
liberalism  in  government,  nor  that  universal  suffrage, 
upon  which  the  choice  of  the  popular  federal  assembly 
rests,  was  not  won  through  revolutionary  agitation  on 
the  part  of  the  representatives  of  the  people,  but  came 
as  a  free  gift  from  the  feudaUstic  monarch  of  Prussia 
through  his  autocratic  minister  at  a  time  when  monarch 
and  minister  had  by  a  violent  interpretation  of  the 
Prussian  bill  of  rights  demonstrated  the  power  of 
autocracy  to  rule  in  Prussia  in  defiance  of  an  over- 
whelming popular  majority.  William  I  and  Bismarck 
reorganized  the  army  and  prepared  for  the  victory  over 
Austria  in  spite  of  the  opposition  of  a  Liberal  majority 
in  the  Prussian  Diet :  while  riding  on  the  crest  of  the 
wave    of    victory    over    the    Habsburg    monarchy    the 


I02    TRE   GER^IAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Prussian  dynasty  then  in  1867  presented  to  the  peoples 
of  the  North  German  Confederation,  some  of  which 
had  just  been  brought  under  Prussian  rule  without 
their  consent,  a  federal  constitution  which  guaranteed 
to  every  male  over  twenty-five  years  of  age  a  share  in 
the  government  through  the  right  to  vote  for  represen- 
tatives in  the  new  federal  assembly. 

Bismarck  once  called  universal  suffrage  "the  most 
powerful  ingredient  known  to  liberty  mongers."  That 
the  adoption  of  the  principle  into  the  German  federal 
constitution  was  one  of  his  cleverest  strokes,  no  one  can 
deny.  His  action  did  not  proceed  from  any  sympathy 
with  popular  government,  but  was,  as  he  called  it,  "a 
weapon  in  the  war  for  German  unity."  The  chief 
opposition  to  this  unity  had  always  lain  in  the  mutual 
jealousies  of  the  various  German  dynasties,  some  of 
whom,  like  the  ruling  famihes  of  Hanover  and  Hesse- 
Cassel,  had  enjoyed  only  a  very  apathetic  allegiance 
and  no  affection  whatever  from  their  subjects.  The 
allegiance  to  the  ideal  of  German  unity  was,  however, 
exceedingly  strong,  and  it  was  the  passionate  devotion 
to  this  ideal  which  Bismarck  used  to  balance  off  dynastic 
jealousies.  To  insure  union,  he  gave  liberty ;  as  against 
the  bickerings  of  petty  princes  he  called  into  being  an 
untrammelled  electorate  of  all  Germans,  eager  for 
sacrifice  for  German  unity,  many  of  them  burning  with 
patriotism  for  the  Prussian  house,  which  henceforth 
was  to  personify  this  ideal.  And  when  after  the  war 
with  France  the  South  German  peoples,  accustomed  for 
more  than  half  a  century  to  more  liberal  constitutions, 
entered  the  new  empire,  the  guarantee  of  universal 
suffrage  with  a  secret  ballot  became  more  than  ever 
necessary  as  a  weapon  against  centrifugal  tendencies. 
Bismarck  had  too  many  of  the  prejudices  of  a  Prus- 
sian rural  aristocrat  to  feel  any  sympathy  with  popular 
government,  and  he  was  as  careful  to  preserve  the  rights 
of    the    dynasties    as    to    curb    their    selfishness.     The 


GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENTARY  RULE     103 

Bundesrat  of  sixty-one  members,  representing  the 
dynasties  of  the  various  states,  prepares  legislation 
under  the  guidance  of  a  ministry  appointed  by  the 
Emperor,  shapes  its  measures  in  secret  session  and  pre- 
sents the  result  to  the  Reichstag  for  acceptance  or  re- 
jection. Theoretically  the  lower  house  can  and  occa- 
sionally does,  originate  legislation  but  it  is  not  the  sort 
of  legislation  that  makes  up  government  policy.  The 
Prussian  aristocracy  which  made  the  German  constitu- 
tion did  not  intend  to  establish  parliamentary  govern- 
ment in  the  empire.  All  measures  relating  to  the 
national  defenses,  all  questions  of  international  policy, 
all  matters  of  taxation  and  administration  issue  full 
grown  from  the  Bundesrat.  The  Reichstag  may  accept 
or  reject  them,  it  may  criticise  or  amend  them  in  com- 
mittee, or  it  may  force  upon  the  government  a  change  of 
poHcy  by  refusing  to  accept  in  any  form  the  proposed 
measure.  Or  the  government  may  dissolve  the  popular 
house  and  appeal  to  the  country,  presenting  to  the  new 
Diet,  which  must  be  elected  and  take  its  seat  within 
three  months,  such  a  program  as  seems  hkely  to  find 
passage.  Any  legislation  originating  in  the  Reichstag 
may  be  brought  before  the  Bundesrat,  but  there  is  no 
means  of  compelling  the  ministry  to  do  this,  and  there 
is  of  course  no  possibihty  that  the  popular  assembly 
will  take  anything  like  unanimous  action  on  any  subject. 
When,  however,  the  government's  measures  emerge 
from  behind  the  locked  doors  of  the  dynastic  chamber, 
they  are  presented  as  the  collective  and  unanimous 
poHcy  of  Germany's  rulers.  As  compared  with  the 
American  system  of  parUamentary  government  with  an 
executive  veto,  the  German  government  is  a  dynastic 
government  with  a  parliamentary  veto ;  as  compared 
with  the  British  system  of  parliamentary  rule  through  a 
responsible  ministry,  the  German  system  provides  for 
parliamentary  acquiescence  in  legislation  prepared  by 
ministers  responsible  to  the  sovereign  alone. 


I04    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

The  federal  ministry  is  at  once  federal-imperial  and 
Prussian,  the  imperial  chancellor  being  always  the 
Prussian  prime  minister,  hence  doubly  responsible  to 
the  Emperor,  who  is,  under  the  terms  of  the  federal 
constitution,  likewise  the  king  of  Prussia.  The  397 
representatives  of  the  people  in  the  Reichstag  cannot 
therefore  bring  the  ministry  to  a  fall.  They  may  put 
an  end  to  their  own  legislative  careers  by  obdurate 
opposition  to  the  will  of  the  crown,  but  they  cannot  force 
the  sovereign  to  choose  a  new  ministry  in  line  with  the 
wishes  of  the  Reichstag,  still  less  can  they  compel  the 
Bundesrat  to  accept  measures  agreeable  to  the  popular 
assembly,  except  indirectly  through  such  a  series  of 
refusals  to  cooperate  in  government  as  seriously  to 
hamper  legislation.  Although  one  or  two  events  of 
this  kind  in  the  history  of  the  German  constitution  will 
appear  below,  it  may  be  noted  here  that  through  the 
clever  management  of  parties  and  the  astute  balancing 
off  of  interests  in  the  Reichstag  there  has  never  yet  come 
about  a  serious  crisis  where  a  popular  revolt  against  the 
dynastic  will  has  resulted  in  a  dangerous  deadlock. 

That  the  Germans  have  never  yet  had  to  force  to  a 
definite  conclusion  the  question  as  to  which  of  the 
powers  of  government,  the  dynastic  or  the  popular, 
is  superior,  has  been  due,  along  \vith  the  cleverness  of  the 
ministry  in  working  the  levers  of  class  and  economic 
rivalry,  to  the  personality  of  the  sovereigns  who  have 
ruled  over  the  new  empire.  In  the  early  sixties  Bismarck 
administered  a  despotic  government  in  Prussia  in  the 
name  of  the  sovereign  notwithstanding  bitter  opposition 
from  the  Liberal  Diet,  claiming  that  in  the  deadlock 
which  had  resulted  between  the  two  powers  of  govern- 
ment, monarch  and  people,  the  monarch  was  justified  in 
governing  until  the  deadlock  should  end.  English 
liberalism  was  still  an  ideal  among  the  Prussian  people, 
and  the  attitude  of  the  middle  classes  at  that  time  tow- 
ard King  William  was  one  of  indifference,  if  not  of 


GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENTARY  RULE     105 

hostility.  But  history  justified  Bismarck's  somewhat 
cynical  remark:  "Germany  does  not  look  for  its 
salvation  to  Prussia's  liberalism  but  to  Prussia's 
power!"  With  the  success  of  Prussia's  military  policy 
in  the  wars  with  Austria  and  France,  the  new-made 
Emperor  William  rode  upon  a  wave  of  popularity  which 
gained  force  and  spread  as  the  old  sovereign  advanced 
to  the  venerable  age  which  made  him  the  dean  of  all 
European  monarchs  and  the  most  distinguished  rep- 
resentative of  the  monarchical  principle.  Among  the 
great  mass  of  Germans,  with  their  romantic  tendency  to 
hero-worship,  the  monarchical  idea  was  tremendously 
strengthened  in  those  years,  a  movement  which  was 
furthered  by  the  attractive  personality  and  the  tragic 
sufferings  of  Emperor  William's  son,  Emperor  Frede- 
rick. 

When  after  the  hundred  days'  reign  of  his  father 
William  II  ascended  the  throne  in  1888,  the  nation  was 
still  in  the  main  pulsing  with  the  enthusiasm  of  187 1 
and  still  ready  for  hero-worship.  He  appealed  to  the 
patriotic  instincts  of  his  people  without  being  able  to 
satisfy  the  affection  which  had  been  given  so  fully  to 
his  grandfather  and  father.  This  is  not  the  place  to 
attempt  an  analysis  of  the  character  of  William  II  ex- 
cept in  so  far  as  it  relates  to  his  attitude  toward  govern- 
ment. This  much  must  be  said,  however,  that  both  as 
Emperor  and  as  king  of  Prussia  he  did  from  the  begin- 
ning of  his  reign  what  he  could  to  hold  the  scales  against 
the  advance  of  parliamentary  government,  and  that  it 
was  due  in  part  to  him  that  Germany's  progress  in 
this  direction  was  far  slower  than  it  otherwise  would  have 
been,  so  slow  in  fact  as  to  produce  a  serious  dislocation 
in  administration.  In  his  poHtical  views  the  Emperor 
showed  himself  an  anachronism,  sharing  to  the  full 
those  ideas  of  the  di\ane  right  of  kings  which  in  Eng- 
land departed  with  the  age  of  the  Restoration.  In  a 
nation    which    was    rushing    breathlessly    ahead    with 


io6    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

industrialism  and  commercialism  and  other  levelling 
forces,  he  stood  forth  as  the  representative  of  the 
militaristic-feudalistic  spirit,  upon  which  for  two  cen- 
turies the  greatness  of  Prussia  had  been  built  up.  Joined 
with  this  mediaeval  view  of  his  position,  which  connects 
him  with  his  grandfather  and  still  more  with  his  great- 
uncle,  Frederick  Wilham  IV,  that  "romanticist  on  the 
throne  of  the  Caesars,"  he  has  displayed  an  impetuous 
temper,  a  many-sided  and  tireless  energy  and  a  gift  for 
forcible  and  epigrammatic  expression.  Endowed  with 
these  vigorous  traits,  he  was  unfortunately  hampered 
in  his  development  by  an  education  and  by  surroundings 
of  a  military  and  feudaUstic  sort,  without  the  temper- 
ing influence  of  trouble  or  misfortune,  and  he  naturally 
enough  developed  an  egotism  which  often  collided 
violently  with  the  growing  self-assertion  of  German 
citizens.  This  royal  egotism  found  expression  early  in 
his  reign  in  the  oft-quoted  autograph  of  the  Emperor 
written  in  the  Golden  Book  of  Senators  in  Munich  in 
1892:  Suprema  lex  regis  voluntas  esto,  "Let  the  sover- 
eign's will  be  the  highest  law"  ;  it  showed  itself  twenty 
years  later  in  his  famous  remark  to  the  Burgomaster  of 
Strasburg,  when,  irritated  by  the  anti-national  agita- 
tion which  followed  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  in 
Alsace-Lorraine,  the  Emperor  declared:  "I  will  break 
your  constitution  into  fragments  and  incorporate  you 
as  a  province  of  Prussia!" 

It  is  evident  that  a  man  of  such  strong  personality, 
who  by  his  very  restlessness  and  versatility  thrust 
himself  constantly  into  the  forefront  of  public  questions, 
might  become  a  danger  to  the  royal  prerogative.  In 
many  ways  William  II  has  undoubtedly  stretched  to 
the  utmost  the  power  of  the  crown.  His  uncompro- 
mising support  of  the  church  and  the  military  establish- 
ment, his  enthusiasm  for  the  fleet  and  his  bitter  opposi- 
tion to  the  progress  of  socialism  made  themselves  felt 
as   powerful    creative    forces   in    interior   policy.     The 


GO\nERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENTARY  RULE     107 

Emperor  wields  a  control  over  appointments  in  the  army 
and  navy  and  diplomatic  corps,  in  the  judiciary  and  civil 
administration  both  in  Prussia  and  the  empire  httle 
short  of  absolute,  whether  exercised  directly  through  the 
ministry  which  he  appoints  or  indirectly  through  the 
lesser  members  of  the  official  hierarchy.  "No  monarch 
in  states  not  absolute  monarchies  has  ever  possessed 
such  an  actual  influence  as  belongs  to  the  Emperor 
to-day,"  wrote  Friedrich  Naumann  in  1905.  That  this 
enormous  influence  was  strengthened  rather  than 
lessened  in  the  decades  which  followed  on  the  Emperor's 
succession  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  was  nearly  always 
exerted  in  accordance  with  the  ideas  and  prejudices  of 
the  class  upon  which  Prussian  and  German  power  was 
built  up  in  the  first  place,  the  vigorous  landed  aris- 
tocracy and  other  feudahstic  elements  in  the  empire. 
Separated  from  these  elements  or  thrown  against  this 
powerful  conservative  group,  the  personal  government 
of  the  imperial  ofl&ce  would  soon  shrivel  in  the  face  of 
parliamentary  opposition,  for  it  must  be  remembered 
that  it  is  not  so  much  personal  and  individual  power 
which  the  Emperor  represents,  as  opposed  to  the  popular 
will  expressed  in  the  Reichstag,  as  it  is  the  will  of  the 
conservative  aristocracy  and  sovereign  princes  centred  in 
his  person.  The  imperial  prerogative  is  too  closely  in- 
terwoven with  all  of  the  forces  of  conservatism  in  church 
and  state  to  be  seriously  impaired  except  through  a 
revolution. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  evidence  to  show  that  as  com- 
pared with  his  grandfather  the  character  of  William  II 
has  done  much  damage  to  the  "divinity  which  doth 
hedge  about  a  king."  A  monarch  who  takes  himself 
very  seriously,  who  brings  his  personahty  into  every 
question  from  that  of  international  poUtics  to  art 
criticism,  must  expose  himself  to  vigorous  and  often 
bitter  criticism  from  so  modern  and  individualistic  a 
people  as  the  Germans.     Especially  the  Social  Demo- 


io8    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

cratic  speakers  and  editors,  to  whom  a  crowned  head  is 
of  course  fair  game,  found  in  the  acts  and  works  of  Wil- 
liam II  abundant  opportunity  for  thinly  veiled  sneers. 
A  long  list  of  prosecutions  for  Use  majeste,  many  of  them 
ridiculously  trivial,  marked  the  first  decade  of  his  reign, 
and  showed  the  inquisitorial  methods  of  the  police  and 
the  sycophancy  of  the  courts  in  a  very  unattractive 
Hght. 

After  the  beginning  of  the  new  century,  however, 
there  was  a  constant  improvement  in  this  regard.  The 
Emperor  profited  by  one  or  two  humiliating  experi- 
ences and  grew  more  reserved  in  his  pubhc  utterances ; 
and  the  German  people  learned  to  take  the  outbursts  of 
an  impulsive  and  imaginative  character  less  seriously. 
In  1908  the  law  covering  lese  majeste  was  revised  so  as 
to  do  away  with  the  prosecution  of  harmless  and  un- 
conscious offenders,  reserving  the  pains  of  the  law  only 
for  those  who  should  "evilly  and  with  malice  afore- 
thought" insult  the  head  of  the  state,  thus  dissolving 
the  nimbus  of  comic  opera  sacro-sanctity  which  the 
courts  and  sycophants  had  woven  around  the  person 
of  the  Emperor.  Unfortunately,  however,  there  was  no 
diminution  of  the  sycophancy  which  seems  necessarily 
connected  with  semi-absolute  rule.  Already  isolated 
from  the  streams  of  popular  hfe  by  his  training  and  by 
the  surroundings  prescribed  by  his  position,  there  is 
reason  to  believe,  apart  from  the  revelations  of  Maxi- 
milian Harden  in  the  Zukunft  in  1908,  that  Emperor 
William  has  always  been  more  or  less  closely  surrounded 
by  a  group  of  men  thoroughly  out  of  sympathy  with 
modern  or  Hberal  ideas  in  government,  who  have  sought 
in  every  way  to  insulate  him  from  all  currents  of  popular 
feeling  and  sympathy.  In  spite  of  the  strong  and  many- 
sided  personality  of  William  II ;  in  spite  of  his  wide 
interests  in  the  affairs  of  the  world  and  the  absolutely 
unparalleled  opportunities  which  he  made  tor  himself 
of  almost  daily  intercourse  with  philosophers,  artists, 


GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENTARY  RULE     109 

inventors  and  captains  of  industry  from  every  part  of 
the  world,  bringing  him  into  touch  with  the  latest 
movements  in  every  field  of  progress;  in  spite  of  his 
travels  and  his  thoroughly  modern  spirit,  he  seems  to 
have  made  httle  progress  in  the  appreciation  of  de- 
mocracy. The  reactionary  influences  of  a  military  and 
feudal  aristocracy  and  the  pliant  flattery  of  a  sycophantic 
and  ilUberal  clique  confirmed  the  romantic  and  abso- 
lutistic  tendencies  of  his  character  and  education.  He 
who  might  have  been  a  great  popular  sovereign,  keeping 
step  with  the  march  of  the  German  people  toward  a 
really  popular  government,  has,  with  all  of  his  abilities, 
his  earnest  patriotism  and  his  appreciation  of  Germany's 
national  destiny,  never  been  able  to  comprehend  the 
political  aspirations  of  his  people  and  has  steadily 
opposed  its  progress  towards  self-government. 

The  autocratic  power  which  makes  of  the  German 
government  a  constitutional  but  not  a  parhamentary 
system  rests  upon  a  still  more  autocratic  power  wielded 
by  the  Emperor  as  king  of  Prussia.  ''Germany  does 
not  look  to  Prussia's  liberaHsm,  but  to  Prussia's  power," 
declared  Bismarck  in  1861,  and  this  power  was  founded 
by  the  sword.  The  unity  of  Germany  was  brought 
about  in  the  last  instance  not  by  liberal  statesmen  nor 
ideahstic  enthusiasts  but  through  the  rude  centraliza- 
tion of  power  in  the  hands  of  a  succession  of  virile 
Prussian  monarchs.  As  king  of  Prussia  the  Emperor 
stands  at  the  head  of  the  imperial  navy,  of  the  entire 
army  in  war  and  of  a  great  part  of  it  in  peace,  and  has  a 
powerful  influence  in  the  Bundesrat.  In  asserting  auto- 
cratic power  he  is  not  only  carrying  out  the  traditions 
of  his  own  royal  house  but  also  those  traditions  on  which 
German  unity  was  founded,  upon  the  principle  of  force 
and  the  ruthless  suppression  of  constitutional  guaran- 
tees. This  is  a  point  which  is  most  difficult  for  Americans 
and  EngUshmen  to  see,  looking  back  as  they  do  upon  a 
history  of  the  steady  development  of  parliamentary  in- 


no    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

stitutions  free  and  unhindered  by  foreign  pressure.  The 
blood  and  iron  which  Bismarck  prescribed  as  necessary 
for  German  unity  was  no  mere  rhetorical  flourish.  It 
is  idle  now  to  speculate  as  to  what  might  have  happened 
had  liberalism  been  permitted  to  develop  in  Prussia 
.as  it  had  begun  to  develop  after  the  reactionary  fifties. 
In  the  revolution  of  1848  it  showed  itself  impotent  to 
unite  the  German  peoples,  and  the  only  other  alterna- 
tive was  a  bloody  struggle,  from  which  the  new  empire 
emerged  as  a  constitutional  but  not  a  parKamentary 
monarchy. 

There  are  signs,  however,  that  even  under  WilUam 
II  the  development  toward  parKamentary  government 
and  particularly  toward  ministerial  responsibility  to 
the  Reichstag  has  gone  forward,  with  infinite  slowness, 
it  is  true,  but  with  real  progress  nevertheless.  One  of 
these  signs  is  to  be  found  in  the  growing  popular  im- 
patience with  the  autocratic  speeches  which  have  been 
a  characteristic  of  the  reign  of  Wilham  11.  In  1893  the 
Emperor,  addressing  a  gathering  of  higher  military 
officers,  threatened  to  dash  to  pieces  the  parhamentary 
opposition  to  the  new  Army  Bill.  The  speech  naturally 
aroused  sharp  criticism,  carefully  veiled,  in  parliamen- 
tary circles.  Contrast  with  that,  however,  the  out- 
burst of  indignation  which  followed  the  threat  of  the 
Emperor  against  the  new  constitution  in  Alsace-Lor- 
raine in  May  1912,  referred  to  above  (cf.  page  106). 
Again  the  crisis  was  one  which  might  well  call  for  the 
union  of  all  German  patriots  behind  the  sovereign; 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  no  one  really  beheved  that  the 
Emperor  meant  his  threat  to  be  taken  literally ;  it  was 
nevertheless  made  the  occasion  for  a  tremendous  outburst 
against  "personal  government."  Not  merely  Socialist 
and  Radical  journals  and  those  Bavarian  and  Wiirtem- 
berg  periodicals  which  are  especially  sensitive  to  Prus- 
sian preponderance,  showed  their  resentmeat  at  the 
Emperor's  words,  but  many  Liberal  papers  and  not  a 


GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENTARY  RULE     iii 

few  organs  of  the  Centre  and  Conservative  parties 
took  the  opportunity  of  giving  a  serious  warning  to 
the  sovereign  not  to  overstep  constitutional  bounds.  In 
the  Reichstag  the  incident  led  to  one  of  those  bitter 
debates  which  became  more  and  more  frequent  after 
the  beginning  of  the  new  century,  where  the  dignity 
of  the  parHamentary  issue  was  lost  in  the  incoherent 
violence  of  SociaKst  attacks  on  the  crown.  The  net 
result  of  the  incident  was  not  so  much  a  call  to  order  of 
the  monarch  for  his  violent  words  as  a  nation-wide 
declaration  that  the  constitution  was  above  attack. 
Once  more  the  Philistine  narrowness  of  the  Social  Demo- 
crats prevented  a  working  union  of  all  liberal  elements. 
On  an  earlier  occasion  there  had  been  in  another  field 
signs  of  a  growing  impatience  with  autocratic  govern- 
ment, this  time  with  somewhat  more  positive  results. 
As  the  new  century  advanced,  public  opinion  became 
more  and  more  sensitive  with  respect  to  the  Emperor's 
attitude  toward  foreign  affairs,  where  the  sovereign 
exercised  a  more  direct  influence  than  is  usual  in  states 
where  constitutional  government  has  thrust  its  roots 
deeper  into  the  soil  of  national  life,  and  showed  the  un- 
conscious lack  of  feeling  for  popular  prejudice  which 
seems  to  be  inseparable  from  the  autocratic  attitude 
of  mind.  During  the  Boer  War  in  1900  the  Emperor 
visited  England,  where  his  relations  with  Queen  Vic- 
toria and  the  royal  house  had  long  been  a  source  of 
irritation  to  German  patriots.  Again  in  1906,  when  the 
German  press  was  smarting  with  a  sense  of  unfulfilled 
ambitions  in  Morocco,  there  were  many  bitter  criticisms 
passed  on  personal  government  and  a  manifest  tendency 
to  make  a  scapegoat  for  the  failure  at  the  Algeciras 
Conference  not  merely  of  Prince  Biilow,  the  Chancellor, 
but  of  the  monarch  himself.  The  most  remarkable 
instance  of  this  growing  sensitiveness  was  found  in  the 
celebrated  Daily  Telegraph  interview  of  October  28, 
1908.     From  this  interview  between  the  correspondent 


112     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

of  the  London  daily  and  the  Emperor,  the  account  of 
which  was  published  with  the  latter's  consent,  the 
German  nation  was  astonished  to  learn  that  during  the 
Boer  War,  when  every  German  heart  was  overflowing 
with  enthusiasm  for  the  South  African  republics  battling 
against  England's  world  power,  the  Emperor  had  pre- 
pared a  plan  of  campaign  for  the  British  army,  had  it 
criticised  by  his  general  staff  and  forwarded  to  England, 
a  plan  which  closely  resembled  the  one  later  followed  by 
Roberts  and  Kitchener  in  destroying  the  power  of  the 
Boers.  Nothing  could  have  aroused  greater  resent- 
ment than  this  discovery,  and  the  embitterment  tow- 
ard the  Emperor  was  in  no  wise  modified  by  the  fact 
that  the  interview  had  by  some  curious  act  of  stupidity 
received  the  approval  of  the  Berhn  ministry  before  it 
was  published.  The  blunder  of  publication,  great  as  it 
was,  sank  into  insignificance  before  the  feeling  of  anger 
at  the  sovereign's  absolute  independence  of  national 
feeling.  The  personality  of  the  ruler  acting  indepen- 
dently of  the  will  of  the  nation  was  felt  to  call  for  the 
bitterest  resentment,  and  brought  about  the  nearest 
thing  to  an  anti-dynastic  wave  since  the  flickering  out 
of  the  last  embers  of  the  revolution  of  1848. 

The  discussion  of  the  incident  in  the  Reichstag  in 
November  1908  brought  to  expression  the  ardent  long- 
ing of  a  great  many  Germans  for  real  parliamentary 
government.  Even  the  tactful  and  adroit  management 
of  Billow  could  not  save  the  sovereign  from  humilia- 
tion; all  the  tactlessness  and  violence  of  the  Social 
Democrats  could  not  break  the  soHdarity  of  the  Liberal 
parties  in  their  demand  for  parliamentary  control  of 
foreign  affairs.  The  Chancellor  issued  on  behalf  of  the 
Emperor  a  statement,  very  carefully  worded  but  clear, 
nevertheless,  in  which  the  monarch  obliged  himself 
"to  retain  constitutional  forms,"  an  unmistakable 
recession  before  the  power  of  public  opinion.  Out  of 
the    discussion    between    Conservatives   and   Liberals 


GOVERNMENT  AND  PARLIAMENTARY  RULE     113 

came  the  clear  and  sharp  enunciation  of  two  ideals: 
that  of  "personal  government,"  backed  by  all  of  the 
conservative  forces  of  the  nation,  and  that  of  parlia- 
mentary government  in  the  British  sense,  with  the  crown 
as  a  mere  figurehead.  It  showed  also  that  while  the 
compromise  which  the  German  constitution  makes 
between  the  two  views  of  government  is  as  yet  un- 
shaken, liberal  forces  are  nevertheless  busily  at  work 
undermining  it. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Government  and  the  Parties 

Admirers  of  the  German  constitution  have  often 
called  attention  to  the  permanency  of  German  minis- 
tries as  compared  with  those  of  France  and  other  Con- 
tinental powers.  It  is  true  that  a  system  which  makes 
the  Chancellor  and  his  associates  independent  of  the 
whims  of  parliaments  and  the  fickleness  of  the  electors 
is  assured  of  greater  stability  than  one  which  has  to  reckon 
with  the  possibihty  of  overthrow  through  the  dissatis- 
faction of  legislators.  And  it  is  also  true  that  the  German 
empire  with  its  girdle  of  unsympathetic  if  not  actually 
hostile  neighbors  could  ill  afford  to  risk  a  governmental 
crisis  at  a  moment  when  perhaps  the  international 
situation  called  for  the  greatest  alertness.  France 
gave,  both  during  the  Dreyfus  and  Morocco  affairs,  an 
awful  example  of  the  ills  attendant  on  swapping  horses 
while  crossing  a  stream.  Bismarck  in  a  noteworthy 
chapter  in  the  second  volume  of  his  memoirs  holds 
it  to  be  an  absolute  necessity  that  a  ministry  should  be 
permitted  to  remain  in  power  in  the  face  of  an  occasional 
lack-of-confidence  vote  or  even  of  persistent  opposition 
on  the  part  of  an  adverse  majority. 

But  in  the  zeal  of  comparing  systems  one  is  apt  to 
forget  how  large  a  part  national  characteristics  play. 
The  defenders  of  the  German  constitution  are  obliged 
to  confess  that  in  spite  of  the  pop-in-pop-out  method 
in  vogue  in  France,  since  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  French  foreign  policy  has  moved  forward  with 
an  adroitness  and  a  breadth  of  view  that  have  been  in 

114 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND   THE   PARTIES       115 

no  wise  diminished  by  changes  in  the  ministry.  The 
success  that  crowned  the  efforts  of  men  like  Delcasse 
and  Pichon  and  Poincare  in  their  deaUngs  with  Eng- 
land and  Germany  and  the  Balkan  states  in  this  period 
was  won  in  the  face  of  the  certainty  that  failure  would  re- 
sult in  their  being  driven  from  power  and  perhaps  public 
hfe.  The  setthng  of  accounts  in  the  French  Chamber 
following  on  the  crises  of  1905  and  1911,  while  conducted 
with  the  Gallic  violence  which  is  so  hard  for  a  Teuton  to 
understand,  was,  hke  the  British  parUamentary  "post- 
mortems" of  May  191 5  concerning  the  failures  of  the 
Asquith  government  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  a  very 
healthy  operation.  It  is  a  fair  statement  that  if  such  a 
calling  to  account  of  the  ministry  could  have  taken 
place  in  the  German  Reichstag  in  1906  after  the  Algeciras 
Conference,  the  crisis  of  191 1  and  some  of  the  con- 
sequent shocks  and  humiliations  to  German  pride  would 
never  have  occurred. 

We  have  seen  that  in  the  main  the  German  citizen 
has  been  satisfied  with  a  system  which  has  found  five 
federal  ministries  sufficient  in  forty-odd  years.  Bis- 
marck, Caprivi,  Hohenlohe,  Blilow  and  Bethmann- 
HoUweg  gave  the  empire  a  fairly  consistent  foreign 
policy  and  secured  for  the  Fatherland  fairly  good  results 
both  in  bartering  with  foreign  ministries  and  in  the 
conduct  of  home  affairs.  With  one  exception,  — 
Hohenlohe,  a  son  of  the  Bavarian  Palatinate,  — •  all 
have  been  Prussians  of  that  feudal  aristocracy  which 
won  unity  for  the  German  people  under  the  leadership 
of  the  HohenzoUern  kings.  While  no  man  from  the 
industrial,  commercial  or  strictly  intellectual  classes 
has  attained  or  could  attain  to  leadership  under  the 
semi-absolutist  system,  still  no  man,  whatever  his 
prestige,  could  hold  the  position  of  Federal  Chancellor 
without  a  deep  knowledge  of  German  character  and  a 
certain  sympathy  with  the  demands  of  all  classes.  The 
first  three  chancellors,  indeed,  had  all  played  an  impor- 


ii6    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

tant  part  in  the  foundation  of  the  empire ;  Biilow  was 
a  trained  and  adroit  diplomat  of  long  experience; 
Bethmann-Hollweg,  who  took  the  rudder  in  1909,  a 
lawyer  and  administrator,  a  man  who  had  come  up 
through  all  the  grades  of  promotion  by  force  of  business 
abihty  and  parHamentary  tact. 

Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  the  leader  of  no  ministry 
in  modern  Europe  must  satisfy  so  many  and  such  varied 
demands  as  the  Imperial  Chancellor,  who  is  at  the  same 
time  Prussian  prime  minister.  Besides  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  empire,  he  must  have  the  tact  to  satisfy 
a  monarch  who  is  intent  on  preserving  all  the  traditions 
of  Prussian  autocracy  and  he  must  be  a  parhamentarian 
adroit  enough  to  hold  the  balance  between  the  forces  of 
conservatism  and  the  rising  demands  of  democracy. 

The  parliamentary  situation  in  Germany  has  offered 
special  difficulties.  Bismarck  once  compared  the  ten- 
dency of  latter-day  Germans  to  break  up  into  parties 
with  the  old  separatism  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  cities, 
villages,  abbeys  and  knights  all  held  directly  from  the 
empire,  with  resulting  feebleness  and  defenselessness. 
"I  know  of  no  other  country,"  he  exclaimed,  '"'where 
national  feeling  and  love  for  the  whole  fatherl&,nd  offer 
so  Httle  resistance  to  the  excess  of  party  passion  as  with 
us."  These  words,  spoken  before  Bismarck's  retirement, 
have  been  strikingly  true  in  Germany's  inner  poHtical 
life  ever  since.  There  has  been  a  tremendous  growth 
in  national  unity,  it  is  true.  The  strongest  testimony 
to  that  was  given  by  the  unanimity  with  which  the 
increases  in  the  army  and  navy  were  voted  in  May  191 2 
by  all  parties  in  the  Reichstag  except  the  Socialists, 
such  increases  as  would  have  cost  Bismarck  a  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Diet  and  a  bitter  electoral  fight.  With 
the  call  to  arms  in  1914  even  the  perfunctory  opposi- 
tion of  the  Social  Democrats  ceased,  and  the  popular 
assembly  supported  the  government  with  practical 
unanimity  in  the  war  measures.     But  in  spite  of  their 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND   THE  PARTIES       117 

oneness  in  response  to  the  national  call,  the  jealousy  of 
the  parties  in  the  Reichstag  elected  in  191 2  was  no  less 
and  the  bitterness  between  the  various  groups  as  in- 
tense as  in  the  days  of  Eugene  Richter  and  Windthorst. 
An  American  or  EngHshman,  accustomed  to  two  great 
parties  of  conservative  and  hberal  thought,  with  various 
more  or  less  short-lived  third  parties  representing 
various  phases  of  industrial  unrest,  finds  it  very  diffi- 
cult to  understand  the  reason  for  many  of  the  divisions 
and  subdivisions  in  German  poHtics.  We  are  accus- 
tomed to  see  all  matters  that  cannot  come  within 
the  wide  program  of  constitutional  interpretation  settled 
more  or  less  independently  of  party ;  in  Germany  the 
tendency  has  been  to  form  a  new  party  to  further  each 
new  economic  or  social  theory,  and  in  not  a  few  cases 
new  parties  have  been  called  into  being  simply  as  an 
expression  of  the  opinion  of  some  individual,  so  that, 
as  Bismarck  says,  "The  whole  matter  is  one  of  Cephas 
and  Paul  and  not  of  principles."  To  the  division 
between  the  Liberal  and  Conservative  parties  was  added 
in  the  early  seventies  a  Clerical  or  Centre  party,  intent 
on  advancing  policies  favored  by  the  Roman  CathoHc 
Church.  The  incorporation  of  Schleswig-Holstein  into 
Prussia  brought  into  the  popular  assembly  a  small  but 
aggressive  Danish  group  from  those  duchies ;  the 
absorption  of  Hanover  by  Prussia  in  1866  added  a 
Guelph  party,  representing  the  hopes  of  a  revival  of 
the  ancient  kingdom  of  Hanover.  The  growth  of  the 
Polish  question  brought  in  a  Polish  group,  recruited 
mainly  from  the  electors  of  the  Prussian  provinces  of 
Posen,  West  Prussia  and  Silesia,  and  representing  the 
national  aspirations  of  the  Poles.  These  "national" 
groups,  whose  concern  was  first  of  all  with  inner  Prus- 
sian questions,  found  their  way  into  the  Reichstag  as 
well  as  the  Prussian  Chamber  of  Deputies,  and  together 
with  the  representatives  of  Alsace-Lorraine  for  forty 
years  formed  within  the  federal  popular  assembly  a  small 


Ii8     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

but  irreconcilable  body,  particularistic  in  the  extreme 
and  hostile  to  national  unity.  The  situation  was  further 
complicated  by  the  economic  advance  of  the  eighties  and 
nineties,  not  merely  through  the  growth  of  the  Social 
Democrats,  the  representatives  of  the  proletariat,  but 
by  the  splitting  of  the  old  Liberal  group  on  the  tariff 
and  other  economic  issues. 

Disagreement,  sphtting  and  reorganization  have 
formed  the  history  of  party  progress  in  modern  Germany. 
Thus  by  his  movement  toward  protection  in  the  late 
seventies  Bismarck  drove  a  wedge  deep  into  the  old 
Liberal  party,  dividing  it  henceforth  into  two  parties 
—  the  National  Liberals,  who  gravitated  toward  conserv- 
atism, and  the  German  Radicals  (Deutschfreisinnigen), 
containing  the  low  tariff  and  more  radical  group.  The 
latter  fraction  spHt  again  in  1893  on  the  question  of 
supporting  the  military  establishment,  and  there  arose 
two  Radical  groups,  —  the  Freisinnige  Vereinigung  and 
the  Freisinnige  Volkspartei, — -which  later  (1907-10) 
coalesced  into  the  Progressive  People's  Party  (Fort- 
schrittliche  Volkspartei).  Amidst  this  confusion  of  per- 
sonalities and  cross-issues  there  was  a  tendency  to 
lose  sight  of  constitutional  questions,  and  the  parties 
in  the  Reichstag,  as  well  as  in  the  popular  assembhes  of 
the  various  states,  became  more  and  more  the  represen- 
tatives of  narrow  economic  and  religious  or  social  in- 
terests, splitting  the  political  life  of  the  nation  into 
innumerable  selfish  cHques  and  seriously  impeding 
progress  toward  real  parliamentary  government.  Thus 
the  conservative  parties  tended  more  and  more  to  rep- 
resent agrarian  interests ;  the  National  Liberals,  greatly 
reduced  in  numbers  and  after  the  beginning  of  the  cen- 
tury threatened  with  another  split  into  progressive  and 
reactionary  elements,  came  to  stand  for  those  industrial 
interests  which  demanded  a  strengthening  of  the  national 
power,  the  open  door  for  trade  and  the  furtherance  and 
cheapening    of    the   means    of    communication;     while 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND   THE   PARTIES       119 

the  commercial  classes,  the  large  and  small  traders, 
advanced  more  and  more  in  a  radical  direction.  The 
Radical  group,  on  the  other  hand,  suffered  a  loss  of 
numbers  through  the  growth  of  the  Social  Democrats, 
who,  beginning  their  party  Hfe  with  two  members  in  the 
Reichstag  of  1871,  grew  in  forty  years  to  a  membership 
of  no,  having  attracted  to  their  support  many  voters 
who  did  not  sympathize  with  socialist  theories.  The 
influence  of  the  party  on  legislation  became  great,  but 
was  exercised  indirectly  rather  than  directly.  By  its 
growth  it  forced  Bismarck  to  undertake  the  socialistic 
compulsory  insurance  laws  of  the  eighties,  and  it  kept 
the  eyes  of  the  voters  constantly  fixed  on  the  necessity 
for  advancing  socialistic  legislation  to  keep  pace  with 
the  growth  of  industry.  The  presence  of  the  party  in 
the  Reichstag  and  in  the  Prussian  Diet  was,  however, 
a  serious  handicap  in  the  nation's  progress  toward  parlia- 
mentary government,  since  repeatedly  through  the 
violence  of  Social  Democratic  speeches  and  newspaper 
attacks  on  the  person  of  the  sovereign  and  nationalist 
ideas  the  other  parties  were  driven  in  the  direction  of 
reaction.  Rather  than  achieve  progress  fighting  shoulder 
to  shoulder  with  the  Social  Democrats,  Liberals  and 
Radicals  again  and  again  failed  to  use  the  favorable 
moment  to  strike  for  more  liberal  institutions.  Rather 
than  combine  forces.  Liberals,  Radicals  and  Socialists 
were  content  to  see  the  affairs  of  the  nation  administered 
by  a  reactionary  and  feudahstic  minority. 

Splitting  and  reorganization,  narrow  particularism 
and  selfish  economic  interest,  therefore,  produced  a 
number  of  parties  in  the  Imperial  Diet,  some  of  them 
so  small  that  the  word  "fraction"  seems  a  very  adequate 
description.  In  the  Reichstag  of  191 2,  the  397  members 
were  dixdded  into  fourteen  clearly  defined  parties,  each 
having  a  "program"  and  each  claiming  to  represent 
more  or  less  important  interests.  Some  of  these  frac- 
tions had  only  one  or  two  members ;   and  there  were  in 


I20    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

addition  four  members  who  found  no  party  program 
to  satisfy  them  and  were  elected  on  no  platform  except 
their  own  individual  theories  as  to  the  promotion  of  the 
public  welfare.  These  varied  interests  and  personal 
ambitions,  however,  fell  into  five  more  or  less  well- 
defined  groups.  The  shades  of  difference  between  the 
various  fractions  making  up  these  larger  groups  are 
often  scarcely  distinguishable,  the  old  breaches  which  in 
some  cases  split  the  fractions  having  long  since  healed, 
and  occasionally  the  existence  of  the  "party"  is  simply 
due  to  the  personal  following  of  certain  ambitious  men. 
As  between  the  five  party  groups,  however,  the  differ- 
ences are  so  marked  that  they  are  plain  to  every  one. 
Representing  as  they  have  come  to  do  economic  in- 
terests as  well  as  constitutional  theories,  they  go  widely 
asunder  in  their  demands.  By  a  custom  generally 
followed  on  the  Continent,  the  more  conservative  groups 
are  seated  on  the  right  of  the  chamber,  as  one  faces  it 
from  the  speaker's  tribune,  the  Clerical  party  in  the 
centre,  and  the  hberal  groups  to  the  left,  the  delegates 
becoming  more  and  more  radical  in  the  seats  to  the 
extreme  left  of  the  presiding  officer.  Following  this 
arrangement,  the  groups  in  the  Reichstag  may  be  defined 
as  Conservative-Agrarian,  Catholic,  Liberal-Industrial, 
Radical-Commercial  and  Socialist-Proletarian.^ 

The  Conservative  Group  is  made  up  of  the  "  German 
or  Ultra-Conservatives"  (Hochkonservativen)  and  the 
"Free  Conservatives"  or  "Imperial  Party"  (Reichs- 
partei).  The  former  is  historically  the  old  Prussian 
party  of  feudal  landholders,  the  latter,  while  defending 
feudal  interests,  early  accepted  and  approved  the  ab- 

^  The  grouping  of  parties  in  the  Reichstag  is  by  no  me2,ns  easy,  es- 
pecially for  the  earlier  years  of  the  empire,  when  the  lines  between 
Liberal  and  Radical  were  not  clearly  drawn  and  the  anti-national 
parties  (Guelphs,  Alsatians,  Poles  and  Danes)  frequently  united  with 
the  Catholic  Centre  for  tactical  purposes.  The  following  arrangement 
follows  in  the  main  the  Radical  publicist  Friedrich  Naumann  and  gives 
a  fairly  complete  picture  of  the  political  complexion  of  the  Imperial 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  PARTIES       121 

sorption  of  Prussia  into  the  German  Empire  and  has 
been  marked  throughout  its  history  by  strongly 
nationalistic  tendencies.  It  has  been  distinctly  less 
reactionary  and  more  inclined  to  submerge  narrowly 
Prussian  interests  into  the  interests  of  the  empire. 
These  two  powerful  wings  represent  the  landed  inter- 
ests of  the  Prussian  Northeast :  Pomerania,  East  Prus- 
sia and  the  Old  Mark,  —  the  backbone  and  ribs  of  the 
Prussian  monarchy  to-day  as  in  the  days  of  Frederick 
the  Great  and  Stein  and  Bliicher,  —  with  occasional 
districts  in  West  Prussia,  Silesia  and  Bavaria.  Rep- 
resenting the  landed  interests,  the  Conservative  group 
after  the  early  nineties  adopted  an  anti-semitic  policy, 
such  as  would  appeal  to  the  prejudices  of  money- 
borrowing  landlord  and  peasant,  and  has  for  tactical 
political  purposes  absorbed  the  small  Anti-Semitic 
faction  and  other  groups  representing  feudal  and 
agrarian  interests  in  the  Reichstag.  It  champions  of 
course  a  sturdy  resistance  to  all  liberah'zing  tendencies 
in  government  administration,  and  is  the  sworn  defender 

Diet  since  the  formation  of  the  empire,  according  to  the  classification 
made  above : 


CONSESV- 

Anti-na- 
tional 

Liberal- 

Radical- 

Socialist- 

Unat- 
tached 

ATIVE- 

Agraeian 

Catholic 

Indus- 
trial 

Commer- 
cial 

Proleta- 
rian 

I87I 

92 

58 

21 

150 

47 

I 

28 

1874 

54 

91 

33 

152 

50 

9 

8 

1877 

78 

93 

28 

127 

48 

12 

II 

1878 

IIS 

93 

35 

98 

34 

9 

13 

I88I 

78 

98 

43 

45 

114 

12 

7 

1884 

106 

99 

42 

50 

74 

24 

2 

1887 

122 

98 

32 

99 

32 

II 

3 

1890 

98 

106 

37 

42 

76 

35 

3 

1893 

116 

96 

37 

53 

48 

44 

3 

1898 

103 

102 

33 

47 

50 

56 

6 

1903 

90 

100 

31 

50 

36 

83 

9 

1907 

112 

104 

28 

56 

50 

43 

4 

I9I2 

74 

90 

33 

45 

44 

no 

4 

122     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

of  autocratic  and  military  power.  Being  largely  Prus- 
sian in  constituency,  it  has  always  defended  Prussia's 
prestige  in  federal  affairs.  In  matters  of  religion  it  is 
strongly  Lutheran  and  ultra-orthodox. 

The  Clerical  or  Centre  party  began  its  existence  as 
the  representative  of  Roman  Catholic  interests  with  the 
formation  of  the  new  empire,  and  it  won  solidarity  and 
parhmentary  skill  during  the  seventies  in  the  so-called 
Kulturkampf,  when  both  in  Prussia  and  the  empire 
Bismarck  directed  an  aggressive  legislative  program 
against  the  Church.  To  the  efforts  of  the  Iron  Chan- 
cellor to  secularize  marriage  and  education  and  to 
subordinate  all  church  interests  to  those  of  the  state, 
the  Centre  party  under  the  expert  leadership  of  Windt- 
horst  opposed  year  after  year  all  the  obstacles  which 
religious  conservatism  has  at  its  command.  After  the 
Kulturkampf  ended  in  a  compromise  in  which  the 
Catholic  church  gained  its  chief  points,  the  Centre 
party  continued  to  exist  with  about  the  same  strength, 
representing  a  conservative  attitude  in  rehgious  and 
educational  matters  and  occasionally  an  anti-national 
direction  in  military  and  colonial  affairs.  It  has  drawn 
its  support  chiefly  from  the  Rhine,  from  Catholic  dis- 
tricts of  eastern  and  southeastern  Prussia  and  from  the 
strongly  Catholic  south,  having  retained  its  hold  on 
these  sections  with  slight  changes  during  forty  years. 
In  rivalry  with  the  Social  Democratic  party  for  working- 
men's  votes,  the  Centre  party  early  framed  an  aggres- 
sive social  program  and  sought  energetically  to  further 
the  interests  of  the  laboring  classes  (cf.  below,  chap.  X). 

Seated  next  towards  the  left  in  the  great  Reichstag 
hall  on  the  Konigsplatz  in  Berlin  come  the  small  "anti- 
national"  fractions  referred  to  above.  They  include 
first  the  few  ''unreconstructed"  Guelph  patriots  of 
Hanover  and  Brunswick,  representatives  of  constitu- 
encies whom  forty  years  of  prosperity  under  Prussian 
government  have  not  sufficed  to  reconcile  to  the  incor- 


THE   GOV'ERNMENT  AND   THE   PARTIES       123 

poration  of  Hanover  into  Prussia.  The  marriage  of  the 
son  of  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  heir  of  the  Guelph 
dynasty,  to  the  daughter  of  the  Emperor  in  May  19 13, 
and  the  installation  of  this  descendant  of  the  kings  of 
Hanover  as  reigning  Duke  of  Brunswick,  brought  about 
a  reconcihation  between  Guelph  and  Hohenzollern  and 
a  renunciation  of  Guelphic  claims  to  the  Hanoverian 
throne.  It  did  not,  however,  reconcile  the  old  dyed- 
in-the-wool  Hanoverian  patriots,  who  had  for  forty- 
seven  years  cursed  the  Hohenzollern  and  all  his  works, 
and  the  Guelphic  fire  continued  to  burn  fiercely  in  the 
bosoms  of  a  part  of  the  Hanoverian  aristocracy  and 
landed  middle  class.  To  the  Guelphs  should  be  added 
the  other  anti-Prussian  fractions,  the  Danes  from 
Schleswig-Holstein  and  the  aggressive  Poles  from 
Germany's  Ireland,  —  West  Prussia,  Posen  and  Silesia. 
No  less  intransigeant  than  these  have  been  the  represen- 
tatives of  Alsace-Lorraine,  who  for  forty  years  refused 
to  be  digested  into  Germany's  poHtical  system,  their 
opposition  growing  if  anything  more  acute  after  the 
granting  of  the  constitution  to  the  "Imperial  Land"  in 
191 1.  As  an  expression  of  their  anti-national  feelings  all 
of  these  fractions  have  voted  regularly  against  national 
measures,  most  frequently  with  the  Centre  party  and 
occasionally  with  the  Social  Democrats. 

The  Liberal  group  is  the  successor  of  the  old  Liberal 
party,  which  fifty  years  ago  sought  to  repeat  on  German 
soil  the  English  struggle  for  parHamentary  government. 
Ha\dng  unsuccessfully  fought  Bismarck's  unconstitu- 
tional policy  in  Prussia,  it  accepted  with  enthusiasm 
the  results  of  this  poHcy  in  the  foundation  of  the  new 
German  empire ;  and  in  the  early  sessions  of  the  Reich- 
stag formed  a  fraction  exceeding  all  other  parties  com- 
bined, working  with  the  Iron  Chancellor  on  a  give- 
and-take  basis  toward  upholding  the  national  program 
and  toward  a  more  liberal  construction  of  the  con- 
stitution.     It  was  the  fate  of  German  liberalism  tliat 


124    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

its  progress  had  to  be  sacrificed  on  the  altar  of  German 
unity,  and  that  when  it  again  began  its  work  in  the  em- 
pire, it  must  again  be  checked,  this  time  by  iron  economic 
forces  which  rent  it  asunder.  Bismarck  forced  the 
tariff  question  to  the  front;  the  old  German  trend 
towards  separatism,  always  stronger  in  liberal  than  in 
conservative  ranks,  asserted  itself,  the  more  radical 
half  of  the  Liberals  adhering  to  free  trade  and  ardently 
striving  for  a  liberalizing  of  the  constitution.  The 
residue,  the  rump  of  the  old  National  Liberal  party, 
saw  itself  robbed  one  by  one  of  the  more  distinctive 
tags  of  Hberalism,  and  the  rise  of  the  Social  Democrats 
forced  it  more  and  more  in  the  direction  of  conservatism. 
Economically  it  has  represented  the  industrial  system, 
which  favors  a  strong  national  policy,  with  Uberal  but 
by  no  means  radical  tendencies.  Its  personnel  has  been 
distinguished,  embracing  some  of  the  ablest  captains 
of  industry  and  a  large  percentage  of  the  professional 
classes,  but  it  has  unfortunately  been  too  dignified, 
in  its  majority  at  least,  and  too  much  afraid  of  making 
common  cause  with  the  Social  Democrats  to  further 
liberal  policies  aggressively. 

The  Radical  group  is,  as  has  been  shown,  the  result 
of  many  splits  and  reorganizations  and  has  suffered 
much  through  many  and  selfish  leaders.  Having  fallen 
heir  to  the  more  emphatically  Hberal  policies  after  the 
economic  split  in  the  National  Liberal  ranks  in  1878, 
it  was  handicapped  all  through  the  eighties  by  its  nega- 
tive attitude  toward  colonial,  naval  and  military  expan- 
sion. The  military  bill  of  1893  led  to  another  split, 
which  was  finally  healed  fifteen  years  later.  At  last 
the  national-imperial  idea  took  possession  even  of  the 
successors  of  Eugene  Richter,  the  great  Radical  leader 
of  the  eighties  who  was  so  constantly  a  thorn  in  Bis- 
marck's side;  and  in  the  Reichstag  of  191 2  the  Radical 
group  trailed  in  behind  the  government's  *'  imperiaUstic  " 
legislation  with  something  very  close  to  enthusiasm.     It 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  PARTIES       125 

had  come  to  represent  more  and  more  the  great  commer- 
cial class,  with  its  sensitiveness  to  international  trade 
conditions  and  its  yearning  for  sound  finance  and  a 
fair  system  of  direct  taxation.  Its  electoral  votes, 
like  those  of  the  National  Liberals,  have  not  been  con- 
fined to  any  section  of  Germany.  It  is,  as  is  natural, 
the  only  party  which  has  not  hesitated  to  combine  with 
the  Social  Democrats  in  the  second  ballotings.  Its 
steady  "front  against  the  Right"  in  matters  of  taxation 
and  inner  administration  made  it  to  a  certain  extent  the 
nucleus  of  progressivism  in  parliamentary  struggles. 

The  Social  Democrats  wdll  receive  consideration  in  a 
later  chapter.  Here  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  while 
the  party  represents,  of  course,  the  working  and  un- 
propertied  classes,  many  of  its  leaders  have  been  re- 
cruited from  among  those  intellectual  knights-errant 
who  were  drawn  into  the  ranks  of  socialism  through 
enthusiasm  for  its  economic  theories  or  from  a  senti- 
mental sympathy  with  the  uplift  of  the  poor.  The 
representatives  of  the  party  in  the  Reichstag  and  in 
the  various  chambers  of  the  individual  German  states 
are  the  editors  of  the  Socialist  papers,  secretaries  of 
the  labor  unions,  master  bakers,  cigar  makers,  small 
merchants  and  innkeepers,  with  here  and  there  an 
author  or  a  poet.  Their  growing  membership  in  the 
Reichstag  has  come  mainly  from  the  industrial  centres, 
where  they  have  captured  such  citadels  of  clericalism 
as  Cologne.  Theoretically  at  least  they  are  pledged 
to  a  program  which  includes  the  overthrow  of  the 
capitalistic  state,  consequently  their  position  in  all 
matters  relating  to  the  national  development  has  been 
negative.  In  times  of  patriotic  enthusiasm,  as  in  the 
appeal  to  the  country  by  the  government  for  support 
of  the  colonial  policy  in  1907,  the  party  loses  votes; 
following  a  period  of  reaction  and  national  depression, 
as  in  191 2,  they  attract  to  themselves  electors  from 
all   Uberal  ranks,  who  thus  register  their  violent  pro- 


126    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

test  against  the  existing  system.  That  their  opposi- 
tion to  national  ideals  is  largely  academic  was  proved 
by  the  practical  unanimity  with  which  the  party  leaders 
followed  the  national  call  on  the  outbreak  of  the  great 
war  in  August  1914  and  the  hearty  support  which  the 
party,  with  remarkably  few  exceptions,  gave  the  war 
measures  in  the  Reichstag. 

This  then  is  the  complicated  system  of  German 
parties  in  the  present  day.  It  is  significant  that  no  one 
of  these  groups  constituted  even  as  much  as  thirty-three 
per  cent  of  the  membership  of  the  Reichstag  of  191 2, 
and  indeed,  not  once  since  the  formation  of  the  empire 
has  one  of  the  five  groups  mentioned  controlled  a  major- 
ity of  the  Imperial  Diet.  The  difficulties  of  govern- 
ment under  such  a  system  are  enormous.  They  re- 
solve themselves  into  the  formation  and  maintenance  of 
a  "block"  for  the  passage  of  government  measures, 
and  in  doing  this  the  Chancellor  must  drive  the  best 
bargain  he  can  with  the  individual  groups  making  up 
the  "block."  It  would  be  out  of  place  here  to  discuss 
the  comparative  merits  of  the  two-party  and  fractional 
systems.  The  latter  prevails  in  nearly  all  of  the 
Continental  legislatures.  The  real  trouble  in  the  Ger- 
man Reichstag  has  lain  less  in  the  fact  that  no  one  party 
could  take  control  than  in  the  lack  of  a  responsible 
ministry.  As  it  is,  the  block  must  do  the  bidding  of 
the  ministry  or  refuse  to  do  it,  because  the  ministry 
represents  the  Bundesrat,  which  in  the  last  instance 
makes  and  breaks  legislation.  Added  to  this  has 
been  the  negative  attitude  of  the  Social  Democrats 
and  the  "national"  fractions,  who  have  as  a  matter 
of  principle  opposed  all  policies  looking  toward  a 
strengthening  of  national  imperial  power.  Their  irre- 
sponsibility and  unmanageableness  of  the  dift'erent  frac- 
tions are  thus  increased. 

After  his  break  with  the  Liberals  in  1877,  Bismarck 
formed   a   Conservative   alliance,   not  merely   because 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  PARTIES       127 

the  landed  gentry  fell  in  with  his  economic  views, 
especially  regarding  the  tariff,  but  also  because  they 
were  more  congenial  with  the  sovereign  and  with  the 
monarchically  inchned  ministry.  Conservatives  and 
Clericals,  landed  interest  and  church  interest,  formed 
the  backbone  of  government  through  the  eighties. 
With  their  help  Bismarck  put  through  his  compulsory 
insurance  bills  and  other  socialistic  legislation,  by  which 
he  hoped  to  pull  the  teeth  of  the  whole  Sociahst  move- 
ment. Through  this  conservative  alliance  the  whole  prin- 
ciple of  authority  was  vastly  strengthened :  it  was  the 
natural  union  between  the  representative  of  the  auto- 
cratic principle  of  government  in  the  sovereign,  backed 
by  the  feudal  Junker,  and  the  organized  and  conservative 
forces  of  the  church. 

When  anti-imperial  elements  threatened  his  policies, 
as  in  1887,  Bismarck  had  but  to  beat  the  long  roll  of 
national  defense  and  point  to  the  restlessness  of  France, 
and  the  nation  responded  to  his  call,  returning  a  con- 
servative-national majority.  Wlien  in  1890  additional 
army  reforms  were  needed,  and  it  seemed  that  the  electors 
might  not  again  respond,  Bismarck  seriously  considered 
a  stroke  against  the  constitution  which  should  sweep 
away  universal  suffrage  and  put  the  Reichstag,  like  the 
Prussian  Chamber,  safely  and  permanently  under 
Conservative  control.  The  young  emperor,  however, 
temporized  with  the  Liberals ;  and  the  Iron  Chancellor's 
successors,  Capri\d  and  Hohenlohe,  found  it  possible  to 
govern  with  Liberal  help,  winning  thereby  the  hatred 
of  the  Conservatives.  Occasionally  the  Kaiser's  min- 
isters would  veer  about  and  pass  a  measure  with  Con- 
servative votes  over  the  heads  of  the  Liberals.  Gradu- 
ally the  Clerical  party,  standing  as  it  has  always  stood  for 
conservatism  and  yet  for  social  progress,  holding  its 
forces  under  control  down  to  the  last  man,  brought 
itself  into  a  position  where  it  controlled  the  balance  of 
power  between  the  struggling  forces  of  Conservatism 


128    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

and  Liberalism.  From  1895  to  1906  the  presidency  of 
the  Reichstag  was  held  by  a  member  of  the  Centre 
party;  and  in  the  same  period  the  government  found 
its  way  to  great  national  ends  completely  blocked  by 
Conservative  opposition.  In  the  Prussian  Diet  the 
landed  gentry  held  the  whip  hand  and  shattered  again 
and  again  carefully  prepared  plans  for  the  development 
of  internal  commerce  by  canals ;  in  the  Reichstag,  the 
Conservative  forces  with  the  help  of  the  Centre  resisted 
direct  taxation  and  brought  the  finances  of  the  empire 
to  the  verge  of  bankruptcy. 

After  the  turn  of  the  century  the  difficulties  of  the 
legislative  system  were  tremendously  increased  by  the 
rapid  growth  of  economic  contrasts.  German  industry 
went  forward  by  leaps  and  bounds  in  this  period :  it  is 
estimated  that  in  the  decade  1 896-1 906  taxable  values 
in  the  Empire  increased  forty  per  cent,  a  ratio  which, 
was  probably  exceeded  between  1906  and  1914.  This 
increase  was  almost  entirely  in  the  industrial  and  com- 
mercial districts,  the  great  agricultural  tracts  of  Mecklen- 
burg and  Prussia  to  the  northeast  of  Elbe  showing  a 
depreciation  in  values  and  an  increase  in  debt.  The 
landed  gentry  of  the  Northeast,  however,  are  the  Con- 
servative party  of  Germany ;  and  through  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  Agrarian  League  {Bund  der  Landwirte)  in 
1893  and  the  pohtical  pressure  which  this  aggressive 
association  was  able  to  exert,  the  agrarian  interests 
crowded  to  the  front  each  year  with  ever  increasing 
demands.  Stung  by  depreciating  values  and  increasing 
debt,  the  party  of  the  landed  aristocracy,  which  through 
its  very  social  weight  exercises  a  strong  influence  on 
the  ministry,  forced  the  government  to  raise  the  pro- 
tective duties  on  agricultural  products  in  1902,  putting 
through  the  measure  with  the  help  of  the  Centre  party. 

Despite  the  strategic  cleverness  by  which  the  Clerical 
party  thus  assured  itself  a  deciding  voice  in  all  questions 
of  national  policy,  a  time  finally  came  when  the  govern- 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND   THE  PARTIES       129 

ment  would  no  longer  be  coerced.  The  Clerical  phalanx 
which  had  carried  its  way  by  sheer  power  of  discipline  on 
so  many  a  legislative  field  met  defeat  when  it  collided 
with  the  growing  enthusiasm  for  Germany  overseas. 
In  1906  the  Centre,  in  common  with  the  Social  Demo- 
crats, refused  to  grant  the  government's  demand  for  a 
sufl&cient  appropriation  to  crush  thoroughly  the  Herero 
revolt  in  Southwest  Africa.  At  once  Biilow  brought 
Bismarck's  old  formula  into  action.  The  Reichstag 
was  dissolved,  and  the  government  appealed  to  the 
voters  of  the  nation  to  say  whether  Germany  should 
continue  on  the  path  of  world  power  or  not.  Bismarck 
had  known  how  to  play  on  the  popular  chord  of  love  of 
German  unity  and  fear  of  France :  it  was  flattering 
testimony  to  the  advance  of  the  national  idea  that  Biilow 
could  successfully  appeal  to  the  desire  of  the  nation  for 
overseas  dominion  and  meet  with  enthusiastic  support 
from  the  same  Radicals  who  had  fought  the  increase 
in  the  army  in  1887.  The  country  responded  with  alac- 
rity. The  powerful  phalanx  of  the  Centre  remained 
unbroken  in  the  general  election  of  1907 ;  but  the 
Social  Democratic  vote  in  the  Reichstag  was  almost  cut 
in  half,  and  the  night  of  the  election  the  Schlossplatz 
in  Berlin  rang  with  the  huzzas  of  thousands  of  patriotic 
Germans,  celebrating  the  national  idea  in  the  person 
of  the  Emperor.  The  government  went  immediately 
to  work  with  a  new  majority  based  on  this  idea,  a 
majority  made  up  of  Conservatives,  Liberals  and 
Radicals  against  the  Centre  and  the  parties  of  protest. 
But  no  sooner  was  the  national  crisis  passed  and  the 
supplies  voted  for  pacification  and  development  in 
Southwest  Africa  than  the  new  "block"  spht  on  the 
economic  reef.  In  the  necessary  reform  of  national 
finances,  the  Liberal-Radical  groups  backed  the  govern- 
ment in  its  demand  for  direct  taxes,  among  which  was 
included  the  inheritance  tax;  the  Conservative  rep- 
resentatives, the  owners  of  entailed  and  family  estates, 


I30    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

refused  to  accept  the  inheritance  tax,  and  the  Centre 
availed  themselves  of  the  opportunity  of  revenge  on 
the  ministry.  Chancellor  Biilow  was  placed  once 
more  before  the  alternative  of  governing  with  the  old 
Conservative-Clerical  majority  or  resigning.  He  re- 
signed, proving  that  the  imperial  ministry  is  respon- 
sible —  not  to  the  majority  in  the  Reichstag,  but  to  the 
Conservative  minority !  His  successor,  Bethmann-Holl- 
weg,  accepted  the  "blue-black"  block,  as  the  Liberal 
newspapers  picturesquely  described  the  union  of  feudal 
and  clerical  interests,  and  for  two  and  one-half  years, 
1909-12,  Germany  went  through  an  era  of  reaction. 

In  the  elections  of  191 2  the  natural  result  came. 
The  electors,  dissatisfied  with  the  subservience  of  the 
government  to  agrarian  interests,  restless  of  clerical 
domination  and  smarting  from  the  Morocco  disappoint- 
ment, registered  their  protest  in  the  manner  which  had 
become  traditional,  by  voting  for  the  Social  Democratic 
candidates.  As  a  result,  when  the  Chancellor  faced 
the  new  Reichstag,  he  found  that  it  would  be  impossible 
for  him  to  construct  a  block  without  the  aid  of  Liberal 
elements.  The  Conservative  parties,  with  all  of  their 
allies,  mustered  fewer  votes  than  at  any  time  since  the 
formation  of  the  empire,  the  Centre  fewer  than  at  any 
time  since  it  was  launched  as  a  party.  Conservatives, 
Clericals  and  allies  but  slightly  outnumbered  the  com- 
bined Radicals  and  Socialists ;  the  45  National  Liberals 
held  the  balance  of  power. 

Under  the  circumstances  a  Conservative-Clerical 
block  was  impossible,  and  the  government  was  re- 
lieved of  the  necessity  of  governing  with  the  help  of 
the  Centre,  a  burden  which  had  been  felt  by  every 
Chancellor  since  1895.  A  Liberal  block  could  have 
been  formed  only  with  the  help  of  the  Social  Democrats, 
something  which  no  ministry  dependent  on  the  monarchy 
could  think  of  accepting.  Bethmann-Hcllweg  took 
the  only  course  possible  for  a  minister  responsible  only 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  PARTIES       131 

to  the  crown :  he  strove  for  a  policy  which  should  unite 
all  groups  representing  the  propertied  classes,  relying 
on  the  antagonism  of  the  National  Liberals  to  the 
Social  Democrats  to  hold  the  Liberal  forces  in  Une  for 
conservative  legislation.  In  191 2  with  striking  una- 
nimity all  the  groups  except  the  Social  Democrats 
and  the  "national"  parties  voted  for  the  increases  in 
the  army  and  navy;  when  it  came  to  covering  the  in- 
creased expenditures,  the  government  bill  laid  a  heavy 
burden  on  wine  and  spirits,  putting  off  once  more  the 
troublesome  problem  of  direct  taxation.  Although 
it  was  certain  that  the  Chancellor  could  count  on  a 
majority  for  the  inheritance  tax,  the  measure  could 
have  been  passed  only  with  Social  Democratic  help  in 
the  face  of  Conservative  opposition,  and  the  Chancellor 
frankly  confessed  himself  as  unwilling  to  accept  success 
at  this  price.  The  emergencies  of  the  foreign  situation 
in  1 91 3  brought  a  compromise,  which  was,  however,  in 
effect  a  Liberal-Socialist  victory.  The  enormous  one- 
time expenditure,  as  well  as  the  annual  deficit  caused 
by  the  provisions  of  the  Defense  Bill  of  that  year  (cf. 
page  11)  forced  the  ministry  to  incorporate  the  principle 
of  direct  taxation  into  its  fiscal  policy,  and  under  the 
stress  of  the  national  danger  the  Conservative-Clerical 
groups  were  forced  to  accept  it.  They  succeeded, 
however,  for  the  present  in  standing  off  the  hated  in- 
heritance tax,  and  the  increased  annual  expenditures 
were  provided  for  by  property-increment  and  sugar 
taxes.  The  immense  sacrifices  which  the  emergency 
called  for  from  all  classes  drew  the  sting  from  party 
defeats  and  disappointments  in  this  crisis. 

This  rather  lengthy  review  of  recent  political  forma- 
tions in  the  Reichstag  makes  clear  the  difficulties  which 
have  attended  the  fractional  system  in  Germany's  na- 
tional affairs.  Had  the  various  political  groups,  represent- 
ing as  they  do  to  a  considerable  extent  economic  groups, 
all  been  filled  with  a  patriotic  spirit  of  give-and-take,  the 


132     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

government  could  have  traced  a  path  toward  political 
and  economic  welfare  with  far  better  results.  As  it 
was,  however,  financial  interests  and  class  prejudices 
have  at  times  brought  the  ministry  well  nigh  to  the  end 
of  its  resources  and  rendered  the  Reichstag  almost  impo- 
tent for  the  transaction  of  business.  Especially  has 
the  government  found  the  matter  of  taxation  difl&cult 
of  adjustment.  The  danger  to  the  ministerial  program 
lay  always  in  the  two  extremes.  The  extreme  agrarian 
party,  from  causes  partly  obvious  and  partly  to  be  dis- 
cussed below,  has  wielded  a  political  power  that  is 
vastly  out  of  proportion  to  its  numbers,  and  as  a  matter 
of  course  has  employed  this  power  to  defeat  a  readjust- 
ment of  taxation  or  any  fiscal  changes  in  Hne  with  the 
growth  of  population  and  industry.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Social  Democrats,  in  spite  of  a  growing  ten- 
dency to  participate  in  government  and  to  push  aside 
their  hard  and  fast  economic  theories,  have  been  ag- 
gressively, even  belligerently,  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
monarchy.  Their  ardent  radicalism  has  made  it  difl&cult 
for  the  government  to  use  them  or  for  the  Liberal  groups 
to  combine  with  them  in  legislation  and  has  compelled 
the  nation  to  submit  under  universal  suffrage  to  govern- 
ment by  a  minority. 

It  was  certain  that  in  spite  of  the  failure  cf  Billow's 
national  block  the  "block  system"  had  come  into  im- 
perial politics  to  stay  and  that  all  important  questions 
of  inner  administration  in  the  future  would  have  to  be 
settled  with  the  aid  of  a  liberal  block.  It  is  not  think- 
able that  the  government  will  be  able  to  rule  again  en- 
tirely with  a  powerful  Conservative-Clerical  majority, 
still  less  that  it  can  get  along,  as  it  once  did,  simply 
with  conservative  support.  While  no  one  believed 
that  the  Social  Democratic  vote  of  four  and  one-quarter 
millions  in  the  Reichstag  election  of  191 2  represented 
simply  Socialist  strength,  a  sharp  veering  of  popular 
sentiment  in  the  direction  of  radicalism  was  observable. 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND   THE  PARTIES       133 

Germany  is  not  America  or  England  or  France,  and 
there  will  always  be  a  number  of  parties,  as  much  to 
represent  the  vigorous  individuality  of  political  leaders 
as  to  champion  the  various  economic  and  social  interests, 
which  are  often  selfishly  narrow.  The  hope  of  liberal- 
ism and  progress  lies  in  the  working  together  of  liberal 
elements,  which  means  that  the  Social  Democrats  must 
in  the  end  modify  their  sharp  class  sentiments,  and  that 
the  National  Liberals  must  show  their  readiness  to 
cooperate  in  legislation  with  the  more  radical  groups. 
Such  a  hberal  group  must  first  command  the  confidence 
of  the  middle  classes  in  its  enthusiasm  for  the  national 
idea,  and  then  it  may  hope  to  make  the  ministry  re- 
sponsible to  it,  in  fact  if  not  in  law.  That  Germany's 
entire  poUtical  system  and  administration  has  remained 
in  a  state  of  arrested  development  has  been  due  more  than 
anything  else  to  the  jealousies  of  the  Hberal  fractions 
themselves.  Bickerings  between  National  Liberals  and 
Radicals  have  lamed  all  united  action  by  these  groups, 
while  the  former  have  preferred  anything  to  an  even 
distant  affihation  with  the  Social  Democrats  and  the 
Social  Democrats  have  been  wilUng  to  sacrifice  every 
practical  advantage  in  legislation  to  tlie  pleasure  of  a 
quixotic  lance  breaking  for  far-off  theories.  The  result 
has  been  that  all  have  been  ruled  by  a  Conservative 
minority.  The  stimulating  example  which  Germany 
gave  to  the  world  of  a  united  nation  at  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  may  well  be  of  lasting  value  to  German  po- 
Htical  life,  if,  when  Mars  no  longer  rules  the  hour,  the 
inspiration  of  this  memory  shall  take  away  something 
of  party  rancor  and  show  the  way  to  a  union  of  liberal 
elements. 

Any  reforms  which  find  their  way  into  the  German 
imperial  constitution  must  first  make  themselves  felt 
in  the  methods  and  usages  of  the  Reichstag.  Apparently 
one  of  the  most  active  of  popular  assemblies,  it  is  in 
practice  one  of  the  most  impotent.     Theoretically,  as 


134    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

we  have  seen,  bills  may  be  introduced  by  any  member ; 
practically,  they  are  introduced  by  the  government  and 
modified  by  the  Reichstag,  either  in  committee  or  on  the 
jfloor  of  the  house.  In  the  committees,  which  represent 
the  larger  fractions  of  the  house,  it  is  usually  made  pretty 
clear  by  the  representatives  of  the  dynasties  just  what 
will  be  acceptable  to  the  Bundesrat;  and  in  view  of  the 
iron  discipline  of  the  various  fractions,  the  house  usually 
votes  what  the  committee  agrees  upon.  Measures 
originating  in  the  Reichstag  itself  have  small  chance  of 
acceptance  by  the  government  in  the  form  presented, 
although  they  may  be  made  later  a  part  of  the  govern- 
ment program.  It  is  therefore  in  effect  government  by 
the  Emperor  and  the  dynasties  with  the  consent  of  the 
Reichstag.  The  result  has  been  a  more  or  less  hostile 
attitude  on  the  part  of  the  representatives  of  the  popular 
parties  toward  the  government.  The  ministry  and  such 
members  of  the  Bundesrat  as  choose  to  be  present  occupy 
elevated  seats  facing  the  assembly,  and  their  attitude 
toward  the  popular  house  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
that  of  the  diplomatic  representatives  of  some  foreign 
treaty  power.  The  imperial  chancellors  have  all  been 
men  of  force  enough  to  command  a  hearing  and  to  com- 
pel cooperation  :  other  less  able  members  of  the  ministry 
have  sometimes  resented  the  imputation  that  the  pre- 
siding officers  of  the  Reichstag  could  exercise  parliamen- 
tary control  over  their  actions.  That  there  is  a  general 
uncertainty  as  to  the  exact  status  of  the  ministry  in 
the  house  has  been  illustrated  on  many  occasions.  A 
striking  example  of  this  occurred  in  connection  with  the 
Emperor's  threat  in  May  191 2  to  destroy  the  constitu- 
tion of  Alsace-Lorraine  (cf.  page  106).  One  of  the 
Social  Democrats  took  occasion  to  attack  the  Prussian 
constitution  on  the  floor  of  the  house,  and  the  Chan- 
cellor, Bethmann-Hollweg,  accompanied  by  such  mem- 
bers of  the  Bundesrat  as  were  present,  arose  and  left 
the  chamber,  followed  by  the  jeers  of  the  Social  Demo- 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND   THE  PARTIES       135 

crats.  The  Kaiser's  chief  minister  claimed  that  the 
presiding  officer  should  have  called  the  offending  speaker 
to  order,  and  as  soon  as  this  was  done,  the  Chancellor 
returned,  accompanied  by  his  entourage.  Some  Con- 
servatives asserted  that  in  the  absence  of  the  govern- 
ment's representatives  the  Reichstag  could  not  legally 
transact  business. 

Another  illustration  of  the  superior  and  independent 
attitude  of  the  government  toward  the  popular  assembly 
occurred  in  the  early  days  of  the  Liberal-Radical- 
Socialist  Reichstag  of  191 2.  The  Diet  was  much  agi- 
tated and  its  business  greatly  impeded  by  the  excite- 
ment attending  the  election  of  its  presiding  officers. 
According  to  traditions,  the  Social  Democrats  as  the 
most  numerous  party  in  the  Diet  should  have  furnished 
the  President.  It  is,  however,  the  duty  of  the  President 
and  two  Vice-Presidents  after  the  organization  of  the 
Reichstag  to  \dsit  the  imperial  palace  and  announce  to 
the  Emperor  the  opening  of  the  house.  This  had  been 
regarded  as  a  court  function  of  some  importance  and 
was  accompanied  by  the  somewhat  stilted  ceremonies 
usual  on  such  occasions.  Now  the  Social  Democrats, 
whose  program  is  frankly  anti-monarchical,  have  al- 
ways protested  against  court  ceremony  in  every  form ; 
and  it  was  only  after  a  long  and  acrid  debate  within  the 
fraction  that  Socialists  finally  agreed  that  their  rep- 
resentative might  fuffil  "the  necessary  functions  of 
representation."  A  Social  Democratic  president  was, 
however,  unthinkable,  not  merely  to  the  entire  Right 
and  Centre  but  to  the  National  Liberals  as  well ;  and 
the  Conservatives  in  the  chamber,  taking  advantage 
of  the  general  uncertainty  as  to  the  behavior  of  the 
SociaUst  at  court,  elected  as  President  the  leader  of  the 
Clerical  party.  Dr.  Spahn.  Of  the  National  Liberals, 
however,  enough  went  over  to  the  Left  to  secure  the 
election  of  Herr  Scheidemann,  a  printer,  the  Social 
Democratic  leader,  as  first  Vice-President  and  a  Radi- 


136    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

cal  as  Second  Vice-President.  Dr.  Spahn  declined  to 
sit  in  the  presidency  with  a  Social  Democrat,  and  Herr 
Scheidemann  actually  presided  over  the  Diet  to  the  glee 
of  his  fraction,  until  another  Radical  leader,  Herr  Kaempf , 
was  elected  President.  Then,  however,  a  fresh  difficulty 
arose.  Acting  on  the  instructions  of  his  party,  Scheide- 
mann refused  to  go  to  the  Schloss  for  presentation,  alleging 
that  while  as  President  he  might  fulfil  the  necessary 
court  functions,  as  Vice-President  he  found  it  unneces- 
sary. The  Chancellor  then  announced  that  acting  on 
his  advice,  the  Emperor  would  not  receive  an  incomplete 
presidential  group.  The  net  result  of  this  curious 
colKsion  of  caste  feehng  with  poHtical  bitterness  and 
proletarian  narrow-mindedness  was  that  the  National 
Liberals,  with  scattering  votes  from  the  Right  and 
Centre,  finally  voted  out  the  Socialist  and  voted  in  a 
Radical-Liberal  presidency. 

In  its  attitude  of  superiority  toward  the  popular 
assembly  the  government  has  been  supported  through 
thick  and  thin  by  the  Conservative  fraction.  In  the 
Reichstag  of  191 2  a  successful  attempt  was  made  to 
introduce  the  British  custom  of  addressing  minor  ques- 
tions to  the  ministry.  Formal  question  and  response 
in  set  speeches  had  been  a  regular  part  of  the  relation- 
ship between  ministry  and  Diet,  but  this  Liberal- 
Radical  Reichstag  provided  for  brief  questions,  an- 
nounced the  day  before,  such  as  are  constantly  levelled 
at  the  ministerial  benches  at  Westminster.  This 
practice,  however,  presupposes  a  sort  of  reponsibility 
to  the  house,  the  very  appearance  of  which  the  govern- 
ment was  anxious  to  avoid ;  and  the  ministers,  among 
them  the  minister  for  foreign  affairs,  the  late  Kiderlen- 
Waechter,  evaded  Social  Democratic  questions  with  the 
superior  manner  of  the  Junker,  amid  thunders  of  ap- 
plause from  the  Conservative  benches. 

A  somewhat  similar  incident  occurred  in  December 
1913  in  connection  with  the  Zabern  affair,  which  for  some 


THE   GOVERNMENT  AND   THE  PARTIES       137 

weeks  held  Germany  breathless  with  excitement  and 
sent  thrills  across  the  Vosges  into  France.  Smarting 
under  the  insults  of  the  Francophile  population  of  the 
Alsatian  town,  the  miHtary  stationed  there,  acting 
under  the  orders  of  their  officers,  had  attacked  citizens 
and  practically  taken  over  the  administration  of  order, 
even  imprisoning  some  members  of  the  municipal  govern- 
ment. Facing  a  stormy  Reichstag,  the  Chancellor,  Beth- 
mann-Hollweg,  in  a  rather  lame  speech  of  explanation, 
in  which  an  investiga.tion  was  promised,  was  understood 
to  say  that  in  any  colHsion  of  authority  between  the 
military  and  the  civil  power,  the  former  must  be  supreme. 
After  a  session  in  which  for  once  the  outraged  feelings 
of  the  National  Liberals  drove  them  into  cooperation 
with  the  Social  Democrats,  a  vote  of  censure  was  passed 
with  the  help  of  practically  the  entire  Left  and  Centre, 
the  Conservatives  voting  with  feudal  solidarity  in  sup- 
port of  the  Chancellor.  The  incident  would  have 
brought  the  ministry  to  instant  fall  in  any  country  with 
really  parliamentary  government.  In  Germany  it  had 
no  further  effect  than  to  register  the  feelings  of  the 
nation  and  to  lead  to  a  rather  halting  explanation  from 
the  Chancellor  on  the  following  day.  While  acknowl- 
edging the  supremacy  of  the  law,  the  Kaiser's  chief 
minister  disclaimed  even  the  slightest  responsibihty 
to  any  one  save  his  "imperial  master." 

It  is  plain  that  the  Reichstag,  checked  and  hampered 
as  it  is  in,  its  full  cooperation  in  government,  is  not  yet 
a  parHament,  but  that  it  is  tending  to  become  one.  It 
does  enjoy  the  opportunity  of  free  speech  and  full 
criticism,  and  it  avails  itself  of  this  opportunity  to  the 
fullest  extent.  Indeed,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  is  no 
deHberative  body  in  the  world  where  discussion  is  so 
untrammelled  and  goes  so  far  afield.  In  discussing  the 
various  budgets  the  opportunity  is  given  for  almost 
unlimited  speechmaking,  and  a  lenient  presidency 
permits  almost  any  subject  to  be  illuminated,  from  the 


138    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

theological  views  of  some  university  professor  to  the 
latest  case  of  mistreatment  of  recruits  or  the  last  army- 
duel.  Under  a  Conservative  presidency  the  discussion 
of  the  monarch  was  forbidden,  but  Radical  presiding 
officers  have  shown  extreme  latitude  in  that  regard. 
To  this  freedom  of  debate  is  added  a  freedom  of  interrup- 
tion, which  is  a  still  worse  delay  to  business.  Zwischen- 
rufe,  interruptions,  by  which  one  expresses  his  approval 
or  disapproval  of  the  speaker's  ideas,  are  characteristic 
of  German  deliberative  assemblies,  and  are  tolerated  in 
the  Reichstag  to  a  degree  which  often  seriously  delays 
business,  especially  when  joined,  as  they  often  are,  with 
colloquies  between  the  speaker  and  the  member  in- 
terrupting. The  debates  in  the  Reichstag  are  given  wide 
publicity  in  the  newspapers :  and  it  may  be  said  that 
with  all  of  their  wordiness  they  have  been  an  invaluable 
means  of  educating  the  German  people  in  parHamentary 
methods  and  in  the  direction  of  more  liberal  ideas. 
Especially  the  Clerical  and  Social  Democratic  members 
through  their  ^effective  party  organizations  are  kept 
informed  of  cases  of  maladministration  of  justice,  of 
the  mistreatment  of  recruits,  of  duels,  of  unconstitu- 
tional acts  or  persecution  on  the  part  of  go^^ernment 
officials,  and  they  give  to  such  cases  a  pubHcity  in  the 
national  assembly  which  cannot  fail  to  have  a  wholesome 
effect.  If  they  cannot  reach  the  offenders,  they  can 
occasionally  sting  the  government  into  action ;  and  in 
any  event  the  fear  of  publicity  is  a  powerful  deterrent 
in  preventing  future  cases.  The  attitude  of  the  Social 
Democrats  in  the  Reichstag,  as  elsewhere  in  public,  has  been 
one  of  marked  insurgency,  and  especially  in  the  Liberal- 
Radical  Diet  of  191 2  they  have  shown  themselves  unre- 
strained. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Feudalism  and  Agriculture 

''Germany  does  not  look  for  her  salvation  to  Prussia's 
liberalism  but  to  Prussia's  power."  This  statement  of 
Bismarck,  made  in  an  oft-quoted  letter  to  the  Freiherr 
von  Billow  in  1861,  marks  the  corner-stone  of  the  founda- 
tion of  German  unity.  Not  only  does  the  empire  rest 
upon  Prussia,  but  Prussia  has  become  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent the  empire.  Prussia's  monarch  is  its  emperor  and 
the  commander  of  its  army  and  navy,  Prussia's  minister- 
president  is  its  chancellor,  the  Prussian  capital  is  its 
capital.  Prussia  includes  nearly  65  per  cent  of  the 
empire's  area,  more  than  61  per  cent  of  its  population 
and  60  per  cent  of  its  taxable  values.  Prussia's  methods 
in  ofl&cial  administration  have  become  the  model  for  the 
smaller  states.  The  mihtary  forces  of  the  greater  part 
of  the  smaller  duchies  and  principalities  are  attached  to 
Prussian  commands,  and  the  railways  of  all  the  central 
states  are  at  Prussia's  mercy  and  therefore  completely 
subordinate  to  the  Prussian  administration. 

And  this  with  justice.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  refer 
again  to  the  part  which  Prussia  played  in  forging  German 
unity.  The  mihtary  organization  and  aggressive  diplo- 
macy of  her  earlier  sovereigns  raised  the  kingdom  be- 
tween the  Thirty  Years'  War  and  the  Napoleonic  wars 
to  be  one  of  the  five  great  powers  of  the  West,  and  bound 
about  the  ancient  electoral  lands  of  Brandenburg  Pom- 
erania  and  the  semi-Sla\-ic  duchies  to  the  east  and 
the  Westphalian  and  Rhenish  country  to  the  west, 
welding  the  whole  together  with  the  iron  bands  of  the 

139 


I40    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Prussian  military  administration  and  the  Prussian 
bureaucracy.  When  in  1866  Bismarck  and  the  Prussian 
armies  put  an  end  to  Austria's  rivalry  for  the  hegemony 
among  the  German  states,  Prussia  planted  the  black 
and  white  standard  permanently  on  the  Danish  border, 
swept  away  the  Guelph  and  Hessian  dynasties  and 
created  by  the  power  of  her  army  and  diplomacy  the 
North  German  Confederation,  in  which  the  smaller 
states  were  only  her  satellites.  And  when  at  Versailles 
in  187 1  after  a  long  debate  the  South  German  kingdoms, 
Bavaria  and  Wiirtemberg,  who  themselves  looked  back 
upon  a  long  history  of  brilliant  national  achievement, 
finally  agreed  to  subordinate  certain  features  of  their 
ancient  independence  to  the  longed-for  German  unity, 
they  entered  an  alliance  in  which  Prussia  was  to  control, 
if  not  a  majority,  at  least  a  commanding  voice  in  the 
Federal  Council,  under  a  constitution  which  could  be 
altered  only  with  Prussia's  consent. 

This  submission  to  the  leadership  of  Prussia  was  not 
looked  upon  from  the  beginning  with  anything  like 
enthusiasm  by  most  South  Germans.  Badener  and 
Wiirtemberger  and  Bavarian  had  each  a  glowing  love 
for  his  own  fatherland  and  each  would  have  been  untrue 
to  his  national  characteristics  and  to  the  traditions  of 
more  than  one  century  if  he  had  not  felt  a  deep  aversion 
to  the  drill-stick  methods  of  the  Prussian  military  sys- 
tem and  the  galling  arrogance  of  Prussian  officialdom. 
But  while  they  disliked  Prussia  and  hated  Bismarck, 
the  South  Germans  loved  German  unity  still  more,  and 
the  power  and  prosperity  which  came  to  the  union  under 
Prussia's  lead  soon  began  to  reconcile  them  to  the  self- 
sufficiency  even  of  Prussian  drill-master  and  bureaucrat. 
The  local  pride  of  the  South  German  states  still  burned 
brightly,  but  there  came  with  the  passing  years  such  a 
levelling  away  of  local  peculiarities  and  an  effacing  of 
state  boundaries  as  must  come  with  the  growth  of  in- 
dustry and  the  improvement  of  the  means  of  communica- 


FEUDALISM  AND  AGRICULTURE  141 

tion.  The  imperial  idea  and  the  enthusiasm  for  Ger- 
many's high  place  among  the  nations  in  the  end  mastered 
the  South  German  democrat  and  the  Prussian  radical 
ahke,  just  as  the  enthusiasm  for  German  unity  had 
mastered  their  fathers.  Furthermore,  the  class  call  of 
the  Social  Democrats  brought  the  working  classes  of  all 
Germany  under  one  standard,  where  they  became  to  a 
certain  extent  moulded  into  one  political  type.  Even 
deep-seated  ethnic  characteristics  yielded  to  the  age  of 
movement,  and  it  grew  more  and  more  difficult  to  recog- 
nize the  Prussian  by  his  reserve  of  manner  and  energy, 
the  Saxon  by  his  genial  pettiness,  the  Swabian  by  his 
blundering  good  nature  and  pathos  and  the  Bavarian 
by  his  sturdy  straightforwardness.  Into  all  of  them 
there  came  in  the  quick-time  march  of  new  Germany 
something  of  Prussian  self-assertiveness  and  hustle. 

It  has  been  necessary  to  recite  these  well-known  facts 
in  the  genesis  of  the  empire  in  order  to  explain  the 
importance  to  Germany  of  Prussia's  political  system 
and  the  influence  of  the  Prussian  ruling  class  on  German 
institutions.  In  constitutional  development,  to  be  sure, 
nearly  all  of  the  smaller  states  have  outstripped  Prussia, 
for,  with  two  exceptions,  all  have  come  to  enjoy  liberal 
constitutions,  or  constitutions  tending  strongly  toward 
Hberalism.  In  most  cases  the  limitations  on  the  suffrage 
in  the  choice  of  representatives  are  very  slight.  In 
Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt,  a  tiny  Thuringian  principality, 
in  191 2  a  Social  Democratic  majority  in  the  chamber 
elected  a  thoroughgoing  Social  Democratic  presidency. 
In  three  of  the  small  states  of  this  region  Social  Demo- 
cratic chambers  have  assisted  the  ruler  in  administering 
government.  Baden,  Bavaria  and  Wiirtemberg  have 
practically  universal  suffrage ;  and  in  the  last-named 
state,  which  more  than  a  century  ago  absorbed  demo- 
cratic ideas  from  France,  the  king's  ministry  has  often 
worked  with  the  Social  Democrats  in  passing  measures 
through  the  chambers.     German  historians  are  fond  of 


142     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

referring  to  the  development  of  the  South  German  con- 
stitutions as  "inorganic,"  meaning  thereby  that  these 
instruments  have  accorded  to  the  popular  electorate  a 
greater  share  in  government  than  it  was  prepared  to 
exercise.  That  these  states  have  had  their  own  problems 
is  certainly  true ;  but  there  are  those  who  believe  that 
self-government  is  best  learned  by  practice,  even  at  the 
cost  of  mistakes,  and  that  the  administration  of  the 
affairs  of  their  own  state  is  the  best  school  for  a  people 
who  would  be  free. 

In  any  event,  if  the  too  rapid  development  of  popular 
government  in  the  South  German  states  was  inorganic, 
the  lack  of  development  in  the  Mecklenburg  duchies 
and  in  Prussia  is  certainly  anachronistic.  Mecklenburg- 
Schwerin  and  Mecklenburg-Strelitz  are  still  under 
feudal  rule.  In  these  states,  lying  in  the  great  alluvial 
plain  between  the  Elbe  and  the  Baltic,  a  land  of  few 
towns  and  many  great  estates,  the  great  landlords  con- 
stitute an  oligarchy  which  has  thus  far  resisted  all  efforts 
to  impose  a  modern  constitution.  It  can  naturally 
only  be  a  question  of  time  when  this  citadel  of  feudalism 
will  yield  and  peasant  and  townsman  obtain  a  share  in 
the  government  of  their  state;  but  thus  far  the  efforts 
of  the  grand  dukes,  who  desire  above  all  to  regulate  the 
financial  situation  through  constitutional  means,  have 
failed  to  break  down  the  opposition  of  the  country 
gentry. 

In  Prussia  also  the  opposition  to  constitutional  revision 
proceeds  from  the  same  class.  After  the  revolution  of 
1848-49  had  spent  its  force  and  the  weak  and  romantic 
Frederick  William  IV,  backed  by  the  landed  aristocracy, 
had  withdrawn  the  constitution  which  the  popular  up- 
heaval had  wrested  from  him,  he  finally  in  1850  presented 
to  his  people  an  instrument  which  might  be  called  the 
last  word  in  reaction.  The  arbitrary  will  of  the  monarch, 
with  a  ministry  responsible  to  him  alone,  was  fenced  in 
by  an  upper  chamber  representing  only  the  crown  and 


FEUD.\LISM  AND  AGRICULTURE  143 

the  aristocracy  and  a  lower  chamber  elected  according 
to  the  "three  class  system,"  indirectly,  with  viva  voce 
balloting.  Under  the  three-class  arrangement  the  total 
amount  of  taxes  paid  in  the  electoral  district  is  divided 
into  three  equal  parts.  The  names  of  the  electors  having 
been  arranged  in  a  hst  according  to  the  amount  of  taxes 
which  each  pays,  the  Hst  is  then  divided  into  three  parts, 
so  that  each  group  pays  one-third  of  the  total  taxes. 
Each  one  of  these  groups  or  "classes"  has  an  equal 
voice  in  selecting  the  primary  electors,  who  then  choose 
the  representative  in  the  national  Diet,  the  Landtag. 
As  a  result  of  this  division  the  electors  in  Prussia  in  1908 
were  classified  as  follows  :  first  class,  4  per  cent ;  second 
class,  14  per  cent ;  third  class,  82  per  cent.  The  injus- 
tice of  a  system  which  rests  entirely  upon  a  property 
basis,  where  the  vote  of  one  man  may  sometimes  have  a 
weight  four  hundred  times  greater  than  that  of  another, 
has  long  been  recognized  even  in  Conservative  circles, 
but  beyond  the  redistricting  of  certain  populous  parts 
of  Prussia  no  change  has  been  made  since  1850.  The 
government  has  repeatedly  promised  reforms  in  the 
electorate,  and  in  1910  the  ministr\^  did  brmg  in  a  reform 
measure,  conservative  enough  but  representing  a  distinct 
advance  in  giving  increased  influence  to  the  middle 
classes.  After  a  long  debate  in  committee,  the  bill  was 
rejected  through  Conservative  manoeuvres. 

The  control  which  the  great  landholders  have  exer- 
cised over  the  elections  through  the  greater  weight  of 
their  votes  under  the  ''three  class  system"  is,  however, 
less  important  than  that  wielded  through  the  silent  ter- 
rorism of  the  "open  ballot."  The  voting  for  the  Reichstag 
is  secret ;  that  for  the  Prussian  Landtag  is  public.  Ter- 
rorizing the  electors  is  of  course  forbidden  by  law,  and 
may,  if  proved,  invahdate  an  election;  but  tenants  and 
employees  on  the  estates  of  the  eastern  provinces  of 
Prussia  are  not  protected  by  any  organization,  and  even 
if  they  were,  the  administration  of  justice  in  these  dis- 


144    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

tricts  is  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  landholding  class. 
It  is  easy  to  see  how  quickly  a  vote  against  the  candi- 
date of  the  local  gentry  might  lead  to  loss  of  home  and 
living  for  the  tenant-employee  and  his  family  and  how 
difficult  it  would  be  to  obtain  redress  from  the  courts. 
Similarly  in  the  small  towns  a  vote  for  a  Social  Demo- 
cratic or  even  a  Radical  or  National  Liberal  candidate 
might  provoke  a  boycott  which  would  quickly  ruin  the 
small  shopkeeper. 

Under  this  constitution,  born  as  it  was  of  the  spirit  of 
reaction  and  held  in  effect  through  the  fear  of  the  rising 
industrial  democracy,  power  in  Prussia  has  remained  in 
the  hands  of  the  landholders  in  the  districts  east  of  the 
Elbe  and  to  a  less  degree  in  those  of  the  upper  middle 
class  in  the  industrial  West.  The  tremendous  shifts  in 
population  which  have  accompanied  the  growth  of  the 
cities  in  Germany  since  i860  have  created  some  rotten 
boroughs  and  left  nearly  all  of  the  larger  cities  in  Prussia 
with  inadequate  representation  in  the  Landtag.  Some 
progress  has  been  made  toward  increasing  the  number 
of  representatives  allowed  certain  cities :  but  it  still 
remains  true  that  the  agricultural  districts  in  Prussia 
are  greatly  over-represented  as  compared  with  the  indus- 
trial districts  and  that  the  kingdom  is  to  a  certain  extent 
governed  in  a  feudalistic  manner.  In  the  Landtag  of 
1908  there  were  to  be  found  139  landholders,  23  manu- 
facturers, six  small  industrialists  and  two  workingmen. 
The  results  of  such  a  state  of  affairs,  which  resembles 
that  existing  in  England  before  the  passage  of  the  Re- 
form Bill  of  1832,  are  manifest  in  the  rigid  attitude  of  the 
entire  administration  toward  anything  that  savors  of 
liberalism.  The  control  of  the  schools  allows  no  com- 
promise in  the  matter  of  religious  instruction.  Not  until 
191 1  did  the  Landtag  authorize  the  building  of  crematories 
in  Prussia,  although  at  that  time  thirteen  existed  in  less 
reactionary  German  states.  The  measure  finally  passed 
by  a  majority  of  one  over  the  votes  of  the  Clerical  party 


FEUDALISM   AND   AGRICULTURE 


145 


and  certain  ultra-orthodox  Lutheran  Conservatives. 
When  the  erection  of  crematories  and  the  cremation  of 
corpses  was  finally  permitted,  the  authorization  was 
accompanied  by  restrictions  which  made  evident  the 
hostile  spirit  of  the  government  toward  such  innovations. 
The  formula  which  the  government  physician  must  fill 
out  before  permission  was  given  for  incineration  was  a 
masterpiece  of  bureaucratic  arrogance,  with  its  heart- 
less, not  to  say  indecent,  inspection  of  the  corpse  and 
record  of  its  condition.  Nevertheless,  by  1913  there 
were  said  to  be  29  crematories  in  operation  in  Prussia^ 
nearly  all  owned  by  the  municipalities.  In  some  cities 
under  clerical  control,  notably  Cologne,  the  municipal 
authorities  made  use  of  the  local  option  allowed  by 
the  statute  and  refused  to  permit  the  erection  of  a 
crematory. 

There  can  of  course  be  no  liberalizing  of  the  national 
administration  in  Prussia  without  a  liberalizing  of  the 
constitution,  and  as  we  have  seen,  the  forces  of  reaction 
have  thus  far  been  strong  enough  to  prevent  that.  The 
chief  opposition  has  lain  with  the  landed  aristocrat, 
the  so-called  Junker,  the  backbone  of  the  Conservative 
party.  To  the  bonds  of  caste  and  feudal  interest  which 
hold  this  class  together  has  been  added  the  economic 
necessity  of  defending  legislatively  the  agrarian  interest.^ 


^  The  political  complexion  of  the  Landtag  in  recent  years  has  been  as 
follows : 


1898 

1903 

1908 

1913 

Ultra-Conservatives 

Free  Conservatives  (Reichspartei)  . 

National  Liberals 

Radicals 

Centre        

144 
58 
75 
36 

100 

13 

7 

143 
59 
79 
32 
97 

13 

10 

152 

60 

65 

36 

104 

7 

15 

4 

148 
53 
73 
40 

103 

Social  Democrats 

Poles 

10 
12 

Unattached 

4 

146     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE   BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Whatever  may  be  its  attitude  towards  political  prog- 
ress, the  Prussian  landed  aristocracy  has  a  right  to  claim 
a  major  part  of  the  credit  for  the  creation  of  united 
Germany.  "Every  Kleist  a  soldier!"  was  said  of  one 
distinguished  Brandenburg  family,  famed  both  in  arms 
and  letters ;  and  the  same  thing  might  be  said  of  many 
another  Prussian  family,  whose  members  have  served 
the  Hohenzollern  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  against 
Austrians,  Swedes  and  French,  as  their  ancestors  served 
the  German  cause  against  the  heathen  Slavs  in  the  North- 
east, A  strong  military  and  political  instinct  runs 
through  these  families,  a  profound  devotion  to  the 
Prussian  name,  an  abiding  faith  in  the  monarchy  as  a 
God-founded  and  God-protected  institution,  an  inborn 
capacity  for  discipline  and  a  commanding  sense  of  duty. 
The  sons  of  these  families  still  constitute  the  backbone 
of  the  army  and  navy,  and  they  are  found  enjoying  the 
highest  offices  in  the  diplomacy  and  inner  administration 
both  of  Prussia  and  the  empire.  They  are  the  only  class 
in  Germany  with  a  well-developed  "pohtical  sense." 
They  are  the  bulwark  of  the  monarchy  and  the  social 
anchor  of  the  state  in  all  storms  of  industrial  upheaval. 

To  the  foreigner  who  sees  the  baron  and  his  family 
visiting  in  Berlin  during  a  few  weeks  of  the  winter  or 
early  spring,  he  is  a  striking  and  original  personality. 
Filled  to  the  brim  with  class  prejudices,  in  many  cases  im- 
poverished by  the  economic  changes  which  have  drawn 
wealth  from  the  agricultural  into  the  industrial  districts, 
indifferent  to  Uterature  and  ignorant  of  art,  untravelled 
in  the  sense  in  which  the  American  and  Englishman 
understands  travel,  insulated  by  his  training  and  prej- 
udices from  the  streams  of  modern  poUtical  and  economic 
thought,  —  the  Prussian  country  gentleman  is  neverthe- 
less possessed  of  a  simplicity  in  his  view  of  life  and  a 
virility  and  force  of  character  that  mark  him  out  any- 
where as  a  noteworthy  social  and  political  force.  He  is 
what  the  English  landed  aristocrat  might  have  been  had 


FEUDALISM  AND   AGRICULTURE  147 

there  been  no  Cromwell  and  no  Revolution  of  1688.  It 
is  extremely  fortunate  for  Germany  that  along  with  her 
tremendous  industrial  growth  she  has  not  yet  seriously 
weakened  this  class,  which  depends  for  its  very  existence 
on  the  maintenance  of  satisfactory  agricultural  conditions. 

How  difficult  it  has  been  for  the  Junker  to  maintain  his 
prestige  with  the  advancing  cost  of  living  and  demands 
of  life,  one  may  easily  understand.  The  two  great  diffi- 
culties which  confronted  the  East  Prussian  landholder 
in  his  effort  to  hold  his  position  economically  were  the 
increasing  cost  of  production  and  the  growing  competi- 
tion with  foreign  countries  in  the  sale  of  food  products. 
Up  to  half  a  century  ago  it  was  comparatively  easy  for 
him  to  maintain  the  economic  and  social  conditions 
which  his  father  and  grandfather  had  enjoyed.  His 
labor  was  stationary,  having  dwelt  for  generations  in 
the  villages  on  or  near  his  estate,  his  products  found  a 
steady  market  at  prices  which  rose  with  the  cost  of  living, 
keeping  step  with  the  general  increase  in  population. 

But  with  the  rapid  industrial  growth  that  followed  the 
extension  of  the  railway  lines  and  the  development  of 
the  early  days  of  the  empire,  the  East  Elbian  Junker's 
troubles  began.  Agricultural  labor  began  to  become 
more  mobile,  and  as  the  North  German  towns  grew  by 
leaps  and  bounds,  it  became  harder  and  harder  to  keep 
the  young  men  and  women  on  the  land.  The  laborers' 
cottages  on  most  of  the  great  estates  of  the  East  are 
owned  by  the  great  landholders,  and  the  condition  of 
these  dwellings  is  often  deplorably  dismal  and  unsani- 
tary. The  hours  of  labor  are  long  and  the  schools  are 
deficient.  The  absolute  dependence  on  the  "bread- 
giver,"  as  the  landlord-employer  is  called,  enforced 
by  the  harsh  special  laws,  which  ever  since  the  end  of 
serfdom,  more  than  a  century  ago,  have  given  special 
protection  to  the  employers  of  rural  labor,  has  grown 
ever  more  galling  as  the  spirit  of  independence  has 
spread  through  the  agricultural  districts.     The  resulting 


148    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

withdrawal  of  labor  from  the  land  went  on  increasingly 
for  more  than  a  generation  until  it  became  an  acute 
problem  for  the  landlords,  who  strove  to  meet  it  in  part 
at  least  by  trying  to  get  from  the  Prussian  Landtag 
severer  laws  controlHng  rural  labor,  in  part  also  by  the 
importation  of  Polish  men  and  women,  chiefly  from 
Galicia.  (Cf.  Chapter  XII.)  The  other  alternative  by 
which  the  emergency  might  have  been  met  —  lowering 
the  cost  of  production  by  the  introduction  of  labor-saving 
machinery  —  was  out  of  the  question,  both  because  of 
the  Junker^s  conservatism  and  his  poverty.  Farm 
machinery,  most  of  it  of  American  manufacture,  did 
find  its  way  into  the  Northeast,  but  both  the  initiative 
and  the  capital  were  lacking  to  make  use  of  it  on  any- 
thing like  the  scale  in  which  it  is  employed  on  the  farms 
west  of  the  Mississippi. 

That  the  landowner  was  not  going  to  let  himself  be 
forced  to  the  wall  became,  however,  perfectly  plain 
after  the  early  nineties  and  grew  plainer  with  each 
succeeding  year.  He  showed  himself  as  ready  to  fight 
that  Prussia  might  continue  to  be  an  agricultural  state 
in  which  the  landholding  class  should  enjoy  the  highest 
power  as  his  ancestors  were  to  fight  to  drive  the  Swedes 
and  French  from  Prussian  soil.  The  Junker  was  ready, 
if  need  be,  to  turn  his  arms  against  any  ministry  that 
betrayed  hberal  or  anti-agrarian  tendencies.  The  bitter- 
est attacks  ever  made  on  Bismarck  were  not  from  the 
Liberal  or  Radical  side,  but  appeared  in  1873-76  in  the 
Berlin  Kreuzzeitung,  the  organ  of  the  ultra-Conserva- 
tives, while  the  Chancellor  was  governing  with  the  aid 
of  a  Liberal  majority.  Bismarck  during  this  period 
found  himself  constantly  faced  by  a  steel  ring  composed 
of  his  own  Junker  class,  whose  points  were  not  lowered 
until  the  Chancellor  came  over  to  their  way  of  thinking. 
Similarly  the  Conservative  Junker  attacked  Bismarck's 
successor,  the  liberal  minded  Caprivi,  and  brought  about 
his  fall ;    and  they  leagued  with  the  Clericals  to  over- 


FEUDALISM  AND  AGRICULTURE  149 

throw  Biilow  in  1909,  because  he  was  resolved  to  lay 
some  of  the  burden  of  reform  in  the  imperial  finances 
on  Conservative-feudal  shoulders. 

Whence  comes  the  poUtical  power  by  which  the  East 
Elbian  aristocrats  have  been  able  to  dominate  not  only 
Prussia,  but  in  a  measure  modern  industrial  Germany 
as  well?  It  lies  first  of  all  in  the  influence  on  the  ad- 
ministration insured  them  through  prestige  of  family 
and  through  their  consequent  proximity  to  the  emperor- 
king.  The  Kaiser  draws  most  of  his  advisers  and  dip- 
lomats from  this  class,  some  of  whose  families  look  back 
on  a  record  of  service  to  the  Prussian  state  little  less 
glorious  than  that  of  the  Hohenzollern  itself.  Further- 
more, in  spite  of  the  redistricting  that  has  taken  place 
in  Prussia  from  time  to  time,  the  weight  of  representation 
of  the  eastern  agricultural  provinces  in  the  national 
legislature  far  surpasses  that  of  the  industrial  West. 
And,  as  has  already  been  seen,  the  Prussian  constitu- 
tion further  hedges  in  its  restricted  electorate  by  an 
open  ballot,  making  of  the  suffrage  what  one  of  the 
defenders  of  the  Prussian  constitution  once  called  "the 
privileged  right  of  a  chosen  minority."  The  Prussian 
ministers  have  repeatedly  promised  a  modification  of  the 
electoral  law,  and  as  has  been  shown,  an  unsuccessful 
effort  in  that  direction  was  made  in  1910;  but  tlie 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  real  reform  are  immense,  since 
any  liberaUzing  of  the  constitution  must  strengthen  the 
Radicals  and  Social  Democrats  with  a  consequent  weak- 
ening of  the  political  power  of  the  Junker  class,  the  class 
which  furnishes  the  most  loyal  and  determined  sup- 
porters of  the  monarchy. 

Through  its  political  power  the  Conservative-agrarian 
class  has  successfully  prevented  the  laws  governing 
agricultural  labor  from  being  brought  into  line  with 
modem  ideas.  In  eastern  Prussia  serfage  exists  in  fact 
if  not  in  name.  By  the  old  law  of  1810  laborers  on  the 
land  are  practically  forbidden  to  cancel  a  contract  or  to 


I50    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

strike  collectively.  Most  of  the  German  states  impose 
special  restrictions  on  agricultural  labor  and  domestic 
labor.  Prussia  by  the  law  of  1854  penalizes  farm  laborers 
and  domestics  who  leave  their  employer  without  com- 
pletion of  their  contract  by  a  fine  of  $3.75  and  imprison- 
ment up  to  three  days.  As  contracts  are  made  for  the 
entire  season  or  the  year,  it  is  easy  to  see  what  power  is 
thrown  into  the  hands  of  the  employer,  especially  when 
the  local  legal  machinery  is  under  direct  control  of  the 
squire,  as  is  the  case  on  the  large  estates.  The  condition 
of  the  farm  laborer  in  the  eastern  provinces  of  Prussia 
is  therefore  scarcely  better  than  that  of  his  Russian 
neighbor.  That  this  state  of  affairs  calls  for  reform  has 
been  clearly  recognized  in  enlightened  political  circles 
in  Prussia;  but  just  as  political  reform  has  thus  far 
been  wrecked  on  the  shoal  of  Conservative-agrarian 
power,  so  social  reform  in  the  eastern  districts  has  thus 
far  fallen  short  on  account  of  the  patriarchal  view  of 
life  of  the  landholders.  To  the  East  Elbian  squire  the 
farm  laborer  is  still  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  serf; 
the  city  with  its  factories  is  a  den  of  destruction  for  the 
bone  and  sinew  of  German  youth,  and  the  soundness  of 
the  whole  German  fabric  consists  in  the  maintenance  of 
the  present  rural  labor  conditions.  That  in  spite  of  all 
efforts  to  the  contrary,  the  movement  of  the  laborers 
from  the  farms  to  the  cities  has  been  an  ever-increasing 
problem,  has  inspired  the  Junker  to  no  other  feeling  than 
that  restrictions  must  be  imposed  upon  the  mobility  of 
the  individual  laborer.  That  his  end  might  be  attained 
otherwise,  and  that  the  laborer  who  refused  to  stay  as 
a  serf  might  be  retained  as  a  freeman  by  granting  him 
the  right  of  organization  and  by  the  improvement  of  the 
farm  workers'  physical  and  material  condition,  is  an 
idea  which  has  found  its  way  with  difficulty  among  the 
landholders.  With  agricultural  land  in  Germany  as  a 
whole  mortgaged  for  one-half  of  its  sale  value,  the  land 
owner  has  not  been  in  a  position  to  undertake  anything 


FEUD.\LISM  AND  AGRICULTURE  151 

in  the  nature  of  benevolence ;  and  his  worship  of  the 
patriarchal  system  has  been  too  strong  for  him  to  con- 
sent to  put  farm  owner  and  laborer  on  the  same  basis 
legally  as  factory  owner  and  employee.  Only  the  slowly 
rolling  years  with  their  unhalting  economic  trend  can 
bring  a  change  in  the  social  and  economic  condition  of  the 
eastern  pro\'inces. 

Aside  from  the  feudal  restrictions  on  labor  by  which 
they  sought  to  hold  down  the  cost  of  production,  the  agra- 
rian interests  have  tried  in  every  way  to  hinder  the  ad- 
mission of  food  products  from  Russia,  Austria  and  over- 
seas to  feed  the  ever-increasing  millions  in  Germany's 
industrial  centres.  The  Agrarian  League  (cf.  page  128), 
not  satisfied  with  imposing  excessive  restrictions  on  the 
admission  of  Hve  cattle  into  Germany  on  the  plea  that 
contagious  diseases  might  be  introduced,  successfully 
fought  to  prevent  the  introduction  of  frozen  meat  from 
abroad,  and  battled  unceasingly,  although  not  with 
complete  success,  for  a  sweeping  government  interdict 
on  the  bringing  in  of  any  cured  beef  or  mutton  and  for 
sharp  restrictions  on  the  importation  of  bacon  or  lard. 
It  waged  war  on  the  Berhn  Produce  Exchange  with 
injurious  results  to  the  agrarian  interests  themselves, 
and  watched  with  sleepless  eye  to  prevent  any  weakening 
of  the  laws  governing  stock  exchanges.  To  this  propa- 
ganda the  agrarian  forces  added  another  which  finally 
obtained  from  the  imperial  government  tariff  restrictions 
that  put  Germany  in  the  front  rank  among  protectionist 
nations  and  reacted  sharply  on  the  price  of  foodstuffs 
and  the  general  welfare  of  the  industrial  wage  earner. 

WTien  in  1877-78  Bismarck  after  long  fidgeting  finally 
went  over  to  a  protectionist  policy  and  broke  with  the 
Liberals,  who  had  imported  from  England  the  Man- 
chester theory  of  laissez  alter,  laissez  faire  in  matters  of 
international  trade,  the  Chancellor  turned,  as  we  have 
seen,  to  build  his  majorities  on  a  Conservative  basis. 
The  Conservative  majority  was  in  the  main   agrarian, 


152     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

and  the  bounty  money  to  seal  the  new  contract  had  to 
be  an  import  duty  on  wheat,  rye  and  oats  and  minor 
agricultural  products.  The  representatives  of  the  in- 
dustrial interests  —  the  Clericals  and  a  rump  of  the 
National  Liberals  —  accepted  the  protectionist  policy, 
and  the  dickering  so  characteristic  of  all  tariff  legislation 
on  two  continents  began.  Bismarck's  first  thought  in 
taking  up  customs  reform  had  probably  been  revenue 
rather  than  protection,  and  there  are  reasons  to  doubt 
whether  he  ever  became  with  soul  and  spirit  a  thorough- 
going protectionist ;  but  Pandora's  box  had  been  opened 
and  the  genii  of  protection  refused  to  be  conjured  back 
into  it  again.  In  1885  and  again  in  1887  duties  on  food 
products  were  forced  up  by  a  majority  of  which  the 
Conservative  phalanx  formed  the  centre  and  strength. 
But  the  fall  in  the  price  of  foodstuffs  was  not  arrested 
in  this  period,  and  the  landed  interests,  hampered  by 
mortgages  and  by  the  economic  reaction  from  the  in- 
flated seventies,  were  forced  into  a  more  and  more  diffi- 
cult position. 

The  tide  had  already  turned,  however,  and  the  effect 
of  protectionist  legislation  had  begun  to  be  felt  when 
Caprivi  succeeded  Bismarck  as  Imperial  Chancellor  in 
1890.  The  new  minister  immediately  inaugurated  a 
policy  of  commercial  treaties,  which  by  a  system  of 
reciprocity  led  at  once  to  tariff  concessions  toward 
Austria  and  Russia  and  were  of  course  immensely  un- 
popular in  agrarian  circles.  The  Prussian  Junker,  who 
believed  himself  hard  hit  by  this  reciprocity  with  Ger- 
many's food-producing  neighbors,  turned  on  Caprivi 
and  brought  his  ministry  to  a  fall.  In  the  meantime  in 
1893  the  Agrarian  League  was  formed  and,  as  we  have 
seen,  immediately  went  into  the  firing  line  of  the  agrarian 
advance.  The  first  summons  to  organization  ihreatened 
the  government  with  dire  vengeance  if  the  agrarian  de- 
mands were  not  granted.  The  founder  Ruprecht  merely 
formulated  the  feelings  of  his  aggressive  class  when  he 


FEUDALISM  AND   AGRICULTURE  153 

summoned  the  landholders,  supposedly  "last  ditchers" 
in  defense  of  the  monarchy,  to  join  forces  with  the 
"enemies  of  society  as  at  present  established,"  with  the 
Social  Democrats,  if  the  government  refused  to  serve 
agrarian  interests.  After  that  time  the  League  con- 
stantly forced  the  fighting  for  the  landholders.  The 
Conservatives,  assisted  usually  by  the  Clericals  and 
National  Liberals,  consistently  pushed  for  agrarian  pro- 
tection and  the  government  consistently  retreated  be- 
fore the  combination.  Under  the  favoring  influence  of 
the  reciprocity  treaties  Germany  at  last  began  to  reap 
the  full  results  of  German  industry,  patience  and  tech- 
nical education,  and  swung  rapidly  to  the  forefront 
among  nations  in  the  exportation  of  manufactured  prod- 
ucts. This  prosperity  of  industry  and  commerce  while 
the  rural  interests  stood  still  or  retrograded,  roused 
the  landowners  to  a  very  fury  of  agitation.  Regarding 
themselves  still  as  the  representatives  of  royal  authority, 
the  Junker  agitation  showed  plainly  that  there  was  truth 
in  the  maxim, 

Der  Konig  absolut, 

Wenn  er  unseren  Willen  tut  I  ^ 

Most  of  the  commercial  treaties  ran  out  in  1901, 
and  the  agrarians  prepared  themselves  for  the  crisis 
by  lectures,  pamphlets  and  every  other  form  of  propa- 
ganda. More  and  more  the  Conservative  party  had 
become  a  feudal-agrarian  combination,  —  joined  with 
the  Clericals  their  influence  in  drawing  up  the  tariff 
bill  of  1902  was  absolute.  The  representatives  of  other 
interests  were  divided,  as  the  National  Liberals  have 
been  in  almost  every  economic  crisis ;  the  Radicals  and 
Social  Democrats  stormed  and  obstructed  in  vain,  and 
the  most  that  the  government  could  do  was  to  modify 
somewhat  the  demands  of  the  Agrarian  League  and 

^  "Let  the  King  be  absolute, 
If  he  only  does  our  will." 


154    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

save  some  shreds  of  reciprocity.  The  bill  as  finally 
passed  increased  the  duties  on  grain  and  meat  to  a 
point  beyond  even  agrarian  dreams  of  nine  years  before. 
The  effect  of  this  legislation  was  seen  immediately  in 
the  increased  price  of  meat,  and  by  1906  and  1907  grain 
had  risen  to  hitherto  unheard-of  figures.  In  the  mean- 
time, the  Agrarian  League  was  by  no  means  satisfied 
with  what  it  had  accomplished  and  began  to  formulate 
still  more  aggressive  demands,  while  watching  with 
argus  eye  over  every  bit  of  legislation  involving  the 
landed  interests.  It  claimed  in  1913  that  90  per  cent  of 
its  membership  were  small  landholders.  If  this  was  true, 
not  the  least  of  its  accomplishments  was  the  bringing 
together  of  small  and  large  landholders  for  a  common 
program,  in  spite  of  the  class  prejudices  which  play  so 
large  a  role  in  rural  circles;  but  of  course  its  most  in- 
fluential elements  are  to  be  found  in  the  Conservative 
party.  The  league  also  claims  that  it  prevented  the 
complete  industrialization  of  Germany,  saving  (German 
agriculture  from  destruction  and  preserving  the  national 
granary,  long  since  destroyed  in  England.  This,  if  true, 
was  an  immense  service ;  and  the  ability  of  the  empire 
to  defy  England's  starvation  program  during  the  war 
must  undoubtedly  be  credited  in  great  part  to  the  ag- 
gressive agrarian  efforts  of  the  preceding  twenty  years. 
Nevertheless,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the  landholding 
interests  sought  their  own  welfare  with  what  often 
seemed  like  a  reckless  disregard  of  the  welfare  of  the 
nation.  In  1906  and  1907  grain  was  exported  from 
Germany  and  sold  at  a  lower  rate  than  that  which  the 
tariff  enabled  the  landholders  to  extort  from  the  Ger- 
man consumer.  The  physical  welfare  of  the  wage  earner 
and  the  small  commercial  class  weighed  as  nothing  with 
those  energetic  agrarians  who  after  1895  swung  the  lash 
with  unrelenting  vigor  over  the  head  of  the  government. 
It  was  not  indeed  merely  with  respect  to  the  tariff  on 
foodstuffs  that  the  conservative-agrarian  classes  in  a 


FEUDALISM   AND  AGRICULTURE  155 

measure  terrorized  the  government  in  the  empire  and  in 
Prussia.  In  1899  the  Prussian  ministry  brought  before 
the  Landtag  a  well-matured,  far-seeing  plan  of  canal 
building  for  the  northwestern  part  of  the  kingdom,  a 
system  which  was  to  connect  the  large  industrial  dis- 
tricts with  the  Rhine,  Weser  and  Elbe.  The  combina- 
tion of  Agrarians  and  Clericals  rejected  it.  In  1901 
another  bill,  which  provided  in  addition  for  canahzing 
the  waterways  leading  into  the  Spree,  Oder  and  Vistula, 
—  in  other  words,  for  the  development  of  the  water  routes 
throughout  all  of  northern  and  eastern  Prussia,  —  was 
voted  down  by  the  same  combination.  At  last  in  1905 
a  similar  bill  was  accepted  only  after  the  government 
had  bound  itself  to  a  system  of  towing  charges  and  river 
tolls  which  in  Conservative  eyes  would  minimize  the 
danger  of  the  easy  introduction  of  foreign  products. 
This  proposition,  to  erect  toll  bars  on  the  formerly  free 
rivers  of  Prussia,  required  the  assent  of  the  other  German 
states ;  but  agrarian  agreement  to  the  canal  plan  hinged 
on  this  arrangement  being  made,  and  bitter  opposition 
to  any  development  of  the  waterways  was  promised  un- 
less some  compensation  were  given  the  landed  interests. 
Germany,  then,  to  a  considerable  extent,  and  Prussia 
to  a  great  extent,  still  stand  under  the  control  of  a  con- 
servative combination.  One  can  reckon  up  a  whole 
list  of  conservative  elements  which  have  all  worked  to- 
gether to  retain  the  present  estabhshment  in  church, 
state  and  society.  There  are  first  the  more  aggressive 
feudal  reactionaries  with  the  Berlin  Kreuzzeitung  as  their 
mouthpiece,  the  same  men  who  fought  Bismarck  until  the 
Iron  Chancellor  forswore  all  liberal  affiliations.  These 
men  stand  for  the  monarchy  as  long  as  the  monarchy 
stands  for  them,  but  like  their  forbears,  the  ancient 
knights  of  the  Marks  of  Brandenburg,  whose  defiance 
Frederick  of  Hohenzollern  broke  in  the  fifteenth  century 
only  after  weary  years  of  struggle,  are  ready  to  defend 
their  claims  if  need  be  against  the  throne  itself.     It  may 


156    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

be  repeated  that  it  was  this  class  which  made  modern 
Prussia  possible,  and  their  devotion  to  Prussia  knows  no 
bounds.  In  the  summer  of  191 1,  when  the  Imperial 
Diet  admitted  to  the  sisterhood  of  federated  states  the 
conquered  provinces  Alsace-Lorraine,  the  proviso  was 
made  that  the  three  votes  in  the  Bundesrat  assigned  to 
the  new  state  should  be  valid  only  when  cast  against 
Prussia.  This  concession  to  the  fear  which  Bavaria  and 
the  South  German  states  entertain  of  Prussia's  great 
power  was  bitterly  opposed  by  the  ultra-Conservatives. 
They  stand  as  the  representatives  of  that  indomitable 
military  and  feudal  spirit,  steel  girt  and  defiant  as  in  the 
days  when  their  ancestors  won  the  North  German  plain 
from  the  Slavic  tribes  and  built  up  the  Prussian  state 
amid  the  lance  thrusts  of  hostile  neighbors.  Untouched 
in  their  feudal  nature  by  the  passage  of  time  and  un- 
tamed by  the  growth  of  radical  elements  in  their  midst, 
they  are  the  most  vigorous  representatives  of  aristocracy 
to  be  found  in  Europe.  Slightly  less  Prussian,  but  to 
the  same  general  class  belong  the  members  of  the  some- 
what smaller  party  of  so-called  "Free  Conservatives" 
(Reichspartei) ,  a  wing  that  is  somewhat  more  ready  to 
set  devotion  to  the  empire  above  feudal  and  particular- 
istic feeling.  Like  the  ultra-wing,  this  party  has  grown 
smaller  in  the  Reichstag,  but  still  retains  its  influence  in 
the  Prussian  Diet.  Like  the  more  intransigeant  group, 
it  too  represents  aristocratic  prejudice  and  agrarian 
interest. 

Upon  these  conservative  groups  the  government  must 
depend,  for  they  represent  the  backbone  of  the  class 
upon  which  the  monarchy  relies  for  its  existence  and 
imperial  Germany  for  its  present  government.  Under 
the  present  constitution  both  in  Prussia  and  the  em- 
pire no  goverrmient  majority  is  long  durable  which  does 
not  contain  these  groups,  because  any  other  combina- 
tion would  soon  force  the  government  to  concessions 
which  would  be  incompatible  either  with  the  basis  on 


FEUDALISM  AND  AGRICULTURE  157 

which  Prussian  Germany  rests  or  with  the  autocratic 
principle.  The  Clericals  by  their  opposition  to  various 
ideas  of  national  expansion  and  by  the  nature  of  the 
party  itself  could  not  be  depended  on  to  do  the  govern- 
ment's bidding  without  concessions  such  as  the  evan- 
gehcal  spirit  of  northern  Germany  w^ould  not  tolerate. 
The  National  Liberals,  who  once  formed  the  backbone 
of  Bismarck's  majorities,  met  the  fate  of  all  parties  that 
try  to  follow  a  middle  course :  they  dwindled  through 
spHts  and  defections  until  their  representatives  became 
too  few  for  building  a  majority,  though  numerous  enough 
to  hold  the  balance  of  power  as  in  the  Reichstag  of  191 2. 
The  Radical  party  demands  a  responsible  ministry  as  a 
condition  for  its  continued  support  in  internal  affairs. 
The  Social  Democrats  represent  opposition  to  the  mo- 
narchical principle  itself. 

The  growth  of  Germany's  trade  and  population  and 
the  progress  of  its  internal  development  point  to  the 
fact  that  the  conservative  alHance  upon  which  the 
government  rested  for  thirty  years  did  not  inflict  serious 
injury  upon  the  nation.  The  class  itself  has  lofty  ideals 
of  national  growth  and  power.  It  represents  the  mihtary 
spirit,  to  be  sure,  but  it  represents  also  ideals  of  personal 
honor,  which,  freakish  and  anachronistic  as  they  some- 
times are,  are  nevertheless  refreshingly  virile.  The 
landed  aristocracy  in  Germany  is  by  no  means  decayed 
or  decaying.  It  is  fond  of  the  soil ;  it  has  borne  its 
various  responsibilities  both  in  government  and  in  private 
life  with  a  deep  sense  of  duty.  With  its  strong  feehng 
of  personal  dignity,  its  deep-grained  loyalty  to  Prussia's 
and  Germany's  feudal  past,  its  physical  vigor  and  passion 
for  arms,  it  has  formed  a  healthy  and  important  balance 
to  Germany's  rapid  industrial  growth,  with  its  accom- 
panying complexity  of  life. 

An  American  cannot  come  personally  into  contact  with 
this  class  of  the  landed  aristocracy  without  being  re- 
minded of  the  planter  class  of  the  South,  as  it  existed 


158    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

before  the  war  between  the  states.  Both  are  marked 
by  the  high  sense  of  personal  dignity  which  Edmund 
Burke  ascribed  to  constant  association  with  inferiors. 
Both  rejoice  in  country  Hfe  and  in  the  profession  of  arms  : 
both  bore  heavy  responsibihties  manfully.  To  both 
fell  far  greater  political  influence  than  the  numbers  of 
their  constituents  would  properly  entitle  them  to,  and 
both  used  this  influence  with  blind  egotism  to  further 
agrarian  interests.  But  there  the  parallel  ceases.  The 
Prusso-German  aristocrat  does  not  hold  sway  through 
any  great  unbroken  territory.  His  political  preserves 
even  in  East  Prussia  and  Pomerania  are  interspersed  with 
democratic  and  socialist  strongholds.  And  he  has  learned 
to  give  way  before  advancing  liberalism.  The  Reichstag 
of  191 2,  in  which  the  Conservative  and  Clerical  forces 
were  counterbalanced  by  Radicals  and  Socialists,  fur- 
nished a  sign  that  Conservative-agrarian  influences  in 
the  empire  were  slowly  losing  ground ;  and  while  there 
might  be  many  ebbs  and  floods,  any  combination  of  more 
than  momentary  importance  for  imperial  legislation  must 
be  built  up  with  Liberal  aid.  It  became  evident  that 
the  sure  growth  of  industry  was  weakening  the  lines  of  the 
feudal-agrarian  combination  and  that  government  aid 
to  the  agrarians  had  for  the  present  reached  a  limit. 
The  march  of  liberalism  into  the  Northeast  appears  cer- 
tain. It  is  becoming  more  and  more  apparent  that 
any  permanent  help  to  the  landed  classes  must  come 
through  the  improvement  of  labor  conditions  and  the 
increased  adoption  of  mechanical  means  of  production 
and  not  by  making  a  crutch  of  legislation. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Liberalism  and  Industry 

The  German  Liberals  resent  the  influence  which  the 
feudal  classes  along  with  the  Clericals  have  exercised 
in  hindering  the  development  of  parliamentary  govern- 
ment. In  the  same  way  the  commercial  and  industrial 
classes  resent  the  tribute  which  they  have  been  obhged 
to  pay  to  the  protected  agrarians  through  the  increased 
cost  of  Hving.  The  feudal  East  has,  however,  not  pro- 
duced the  only  autocrats  with  whom  the  German  ministry 
has  had  to  deal.  The  industrial  districts  of  the  West 
have  brought  forth  a  class  of  men  whose  attitude  towards 
government  is  no  less  arrogant  than  that  of  the  land- 
owners. In  the  manufacturing  districts  of  the  Rhine- 
land,  Westphalia,  Saxony  and  Silesia,  there  is  practically 
the  same  spirit  of  domination  in  their  own  interest  on  the 
part  of  the  captains  of  industry  as  has  been  shown  to 
exist  in  the  eastern  provinces  of  Prussia,  the  only  differ- 
ence being  that  the  political  influence  of  the  industrialist 
has  been  negative  rather  than  positive.  Both  East 
Elbian  Junker  and  Westphalian  industriaHst  have  looked 
to  the  government  to  protect  their  interests  by  a  tariff 
wall.  Each  has  expected  more  or  less  direct  help  and 
much  indirect  help  from  the  government  in  controlling 
his  labor.  In  the  East  it  has  been  social  and  dynastic 
influences  and  the  rotten  borough  system  that  the 
landholder  has  relied  upon ;  in  the  West  it  is  wealth 
and  the  government's  fear  of  the  rising  tide  of  socialism 
upon  which  the  captain  of  industry  has  based  his  claims 
to  recognition. 

IS9 


i6o    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

There  is  one  difference,  however.  The  influence  of 
the  feudal  agrarian  has  steadily  diminished  through  the 
industrial  growth  of  the  empire,  which  since  the  eighties 
has  been  slowly  shifting  the  weight  of  Germany's  popu- 
lation toward  the  west,  and  in  spite  of  agrarian  aggres- 
siveness it  is  plain  that  the  feudal-conservative  power 
must  become  less  and  less  important  in  the  nation. 
On  the  other  hand  the  great  manufacturers,  with  their 
rapidly  mounting  wealth  and  the  growing  power  of  their 
syndicate  organization,  cannot  fail  to  have  an  increasing 
voice  in  public  affairs  until  a  new  balance  is  reached. 

The  traveller  riding  from  Metz  to  Mannheim  through 
the  busy  districts  of  Lorraine  or  from  Dresden  to  Chem- 
nitz across  the  Saxon  hills  is  never  out  of  sight  of  factory 
chimneys.  In  the  southwest,  steel  mills  and  engine 
factories,  tile  works  and  potteries  thrust  their  blackened 
stacks  across  the  landscape  in  every  village ;  in  Saxony, 
spinning  and  weaving  mills,  chemical  works  and  glass 
foundries  stretch  like  a  vast  net  north,  south,  east  and 
west.  In  every  city  of  North  and  South  Germany,  in 
the  remotest  valleys  of  Thuringia  and  the  Riesengebirge 
of  Silesia,  the  glazed  brick  factory  walls  and  streams  of 
laborers  testify  to  the  tremendous  industrial  progress 
of  the  country.  If  the  Saarbriicken  district  of  Lorraine 
reminds  the  American  of  one  of  our  Lake  cities  and  the 
Chemnitz  region  recalls  the  textile  centres  of  eastern 
Massachusetts,  the  country  lying  to  the  northeast  of 
Cologne  seems  like  a  multiplied  Pittsburg.  For  a 
hundred  miles  the  traveller  from  the  Belgian  border  to 
Hanover  passing  through  the  northern  arch  of  the  Rhine 
province  and  the  province  of  Westphalia  rides  between 
almost  unbroken  lines  of  foundries  and  factories.  Here 
in  the  Westphalian  hills  the  two  great  natural  resources, 
coal  and  iron,  He  side  by  side,  and  here  the  German 
genius  for  organization  has  celebrated  its  greatest 
triumphs.  Great  cities  like  Crefeld,  Dusseldorf,  Elber- 
feld.  Barmen,  Essen  and  Dortmund  lie  so  close  together 


LIBERALISM  AND   INDUSTRY  l6i 

that  an  automobile  will  cover  the  entire  circle  of  them 
in  a  day's  easy  ride,  and  they  are  linked  together  by 
a  chain  of  busy  municipalities  which  bid  fair  them- 
selves soon  to  become  important  cities.  The  growth  of 
this  region  has  been  almost  appalling.  The  day  is 
blackened  by  smoke  pouring  from  a  hundred  stacks,  the 
night  is  agleam  with  the  angry  Hght  of  thousands  of  coke 
ovens  and  blast  furnaces,  the  earth  trembles  under  the 
whizzing  of  cars  laden  with  coal  and  iron.  New  fac- 
tories have  constantly  sprung  up,  equipped  with  the 
latest  technical  contrivances,  and  whole  new  streets  of 
workingmen's  dwellings  lead  out  from  every  suburb 
far  into  the  open  country.  In  the  early  morm'ng  miles 
of  becapped  workingmen  fill  the  walkways  or  bicycle 
through  the  streets,  in  the  evening  the  earth  fairly  quakes 
under  the  tread  of  the  army  of  labor  taking  its  way  home- 
ward. 

The  tremendous  industrial  expansion  of  which  these 
are  the  outward  and  visible  sign  began  with  a  mild 
impetus  in  the  early  sixties,  when  the  ideal  of  German 
unity  under  Prussian  leadership  seemed  very  far  short 
of  realization.  With  the  foundation  of  the  North  Ger- 
man Federation  the  iron  and  steel  industry  began  to  give 
signs  of  really  exploiting  the  vast  resources  which  lay 
buried  in  Westphalia  along  the  banks  of  the  Ruhr,  and 
the  textile  mills  of  Saxony  entered  on  a  stage  of  de- 
velopment independent  of  their  former  slavish  imitation 
of  the  English.  With  the  impetus  which  came  after  the 
war  of  1870  and  the  turning  into  German  coffers  of  the 
billion  dollars  war  indemnity,  German  manufacturers 
began  the  triumphal  march  which  continued  until  the 
war  alarm  of  1914.  Setbacks  there  were,  as  in  the  panic 
year  1875,  follo\ving  the  great  speculation  of  the  early 
days  of  the  empire,  and  again  in  1901  and  1002,  when  the 
markets  of  the  world  were  glutted  with  German  products, 
but  the  sweep  was  ever  forward.  Fired  by  the  enthusi- 
asm of  the  imperial  idea,  accustomed  to  great  things  in 


1 62     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

political  life,  the  German  mine  owner  and  manufacturer 
arose  from  small  undertakings,  with  limited  capital  and  a 
servile  imitation  of  English  methods,  to  a  point  where  in 
capital  and  initiative  he  could  hold  his  own  against  the 
greatest  magnates  of  British  and  American  industry,  while 
he  had  among  his  operatives  resources  in  technical  edu- 
cation which  his  English  and  American  rival  could  not 
command. 

Some  phases  of  the  industrial  expansion  of  Germany 
will  form  the  subject  matter  of  a  later  chapter ;  for  the 
present  it  is  of  interest  to  see  the  political  effect  which 
the  concentration  and  organization  of  capital  has  had 
upon  the  nation.  German  captains  of  industry  did  not 
build  up  trusts  in  the  American  sense,  but  by  a  system 
of  "cartels"  and  syndicates  nearly  the  whole  of  Ger- 
man industry  was  organized  for  the  purpose  of  fixing 
prices,  limiting  production,  dividing  the  field  of  sale 
and  distributing  goods,  so  that  the  results  were  prac- 
tically the  same  as  if  the  capital  of  the  various  concerns 
were  pooled.  Especially  in  coal  and  iron  mining  and  in 
the  steel  industry  the  process  of  syndicating  went  to  the 
point  where  the  trade  was  absolutely  controlled  and  the 
middle-man  practically  eliminated.  The  great  genera- 
tion of  organizers  who  built  up  this  system  of  cartels 
and  syndicates  is  still  in  the  saddle.  The  history  of 
German  industry  is  as  yet  too  brief  for  the  first  group  of 
creative  spirits  to  have  passed  away, — the  men  who  to  a 
considerable  extent  resemble  in  energy  and  will  power 
and  executive  ability  the  generation  of  Americans  who 
after  the  war  between  the  states  laid  the  foundation  of 
our  steel  and  iron  industries  and  built  the  railways  from 
coast  to  coast.  More  and  more  industrial  power  became 
centred  in  the  hands  of  a  small  group  of  men.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  new  century  three  banks  had  become 
practically  supreme  in  German  financial  affairs.  It 
was  estimated  in  1906  by  conservative  economists  that 
the  threads  of  the  big  business  of  the  entire  empire 


LIBERALISM   AND   INDUSTRY  163 

passed  through  the  fingers  of  not  more  than  fifty  men. 
The  whole  Rhine-Westphalian  system  of  collieries  by 
1907  was  under  the  control  of  six  capitalists. 

It  is  perfectly  patent  that  even  a  government  in  which 
the  monarchical  principle  plays  so  large  a  part  could  not 
escape  the  influence  of  business  men  like  these.  Business 
and  politics  find  themselves  as  necessarily  allied  in  Ger- 
many as  in  other  lands.  We  have  seen  how  great  the 
influence  of  the  Conservative-agrarian  element  was  in 
bringing  about  fiscal  legislation.  The  influence  of  the 
industrial  aristocracy  on  the  government  was  less  noisily 
exerted  perhaps,  but  just  as  effectively.  This  aristocracy 
is  a  creation  of  the  age  of  large  capital,  many  of  the 
families,  like  the  Krupps,  having  come  up  in  two  or 
three  generations  from  the  humblest  beginnings  to  a 
point  where  they  have  become  allied  in  marriage  with 
the  most  exclusive  feudal  circles.  Not  a  few  of  these 
families  have  been  ennobled,  several  of  them  enjoying 
the  quite  especial  favor  of  the  sovereign.  Indeed,  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  none  of  the  military  caste  in 
Prussia,  not  even  the  Conservative  Von  Heydebrand, 
whose  ruthless  leadership  of  the  feudal  forces  won  for 
him  the  title  of  "uncrowned  king  of  Prussia,"  has  had  a 
more  forceful  influence  on  the  ministry  than  self-made 
capitalists  like  August  Thyssen,  the  iron  king,  or  Arthur 
von  Gwinner,  the  head  of  the  Deutsche  Bank,  or  Karl 
Helfferich,  the  clever  banker  who  was  entrusted  with  the 
financial  organization  of  the  war,  or  Ballin,  the  Jewish 
manager  of  the  Hamburg-American  Line.  It  was  not 
merely  the  possession  of  great  wealth  and  business  power 
which  insured  them  the  personal  patronage  of  the  crown 
and  the  supporting  hand  of  government,  but  the  quite 
correct  feehng  on  the  part  of  the  imperial  and  Prussian 
ministry  that  these  industrial  and  commercial  barons 
have  the  future  of  Germany  in  their  hands,  and  the  ad- 
ditional fact  that  they,  as  much  as  the  feudal  nobility, 
are  the  sworn  enemies  of  the  Social  Democracy.     With 


1 64    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

the  imperiousness  of  self-made  men,  the  barons  of  in- 
dustry and  commerce  have  been  nearly  all  foes  of  or- 
ganized labor  and  bitterly  determined  to  remain  "masters 
in  their  own  house"  as  far  as  the  conduct  of  their  own 
business  is  concerned. 

The  influence  of  such  men  on  politics  has  been  exerted 
independently  of  party.  Large  capitalists  organize  po- 
litical influence,  not  political  parties ;  and  big  business 
in  Germany  as  in  America  has  found  it  possible  to  remain 
on  good  terms  with  nearly  all  of  the  political  factions. 
Indeed  its  direct  influence  on  government  has  made  it 
to  a  certain  extent  independent  of  the  political  game. 
Its  restraining  hand  has  not  been  used  with  the  brutal 
openness  with  which  the  feudal  agrarian  interests  are 
accustomed  to  exert  pressure,  but  it  has  made  itself  felt 
sharply  enough.  The  results  of  this  restraint  on  govern- 
ment have  shown  themselves  in  many  ways :  in  the 
repeated  refusal  of  the  Prussian  ministry  to  bring  in  a 
measure  fixing  a  ten-hour  day  of  labor  on  government 
work,  although  on  certain  kinds  of  public  works  an 
eight-hour  day  was  already  in  operation ;  in  the  refusal 
of  the  imperial  ministry  to  lower  the  age  limit  for  inva- 
lidity in  the  revision  of  the  old  age  pension  bill  in  191 1, 
and  a  similar  refusal  to  extend  the  period  of  enforced 
rest  for  lying-in  women.  In  these  and  similar  cases  the 
ministers  recognized  the  justice  of  the  demands  of  labor, 
but  as  Count  Posadowsky,  the  able  Prussian  Minister 
of  the  Interior,  declared  in  1906,  they  were  "unwilling 
to  add  to  the  burdens  of  industry."  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  gifted  Silesian  aristocrat  spoke  in  perfectly  good 
faith,  for  he  more  fully  perhaps  than  any  of  his  colleagues 
understood  the  demands  of  labor ;  nevertheless,  it  may 
safely  be  said  that  the  need  which  the  government  felt 
of  the  full  support  of  the  great  industrialists  in  the 
struggle  against  the  Social  Democracy  was  the  chief 
reason  why  it  did  not  find  it  expedient  to  grant  these 
reasonable  demands. 


LIBERALISM  AND   INDUSTRY  165 

Far  less  important  is  the  influence  of  large  business 
interests  on  the  ReicJistag  and  the  various  state  parHa- 
ments.^  Indeed,  were  the  Reichstag  a  really  parliamen- 
tary body,  instead  of  being  merely  a  consulting  com- 
mittee in  matters  of  legislation,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
since  1907  a  majority  could  have  been  found  for  some 
radical  restraint  of  the  syndicating  process,  v/hich  made 
such  progress  in  Germany  after  the  beginning  of  the 
century.  This  system,  by  which  the  territory  of  dis- 
tribution and  sale  is  divided  out  among  the  various 
members  of  the  manufacturers'  sjTidicates,  production 
restrained  and  prices  fixed  and  maintained  in  times  of 
over-production  by  selHng  the  overplus  abroad  at  prices 
lower  than  those  obtaining  at  home,  was  viewed  with 
suspicion  by  all  poKtical  parties,  even  by  the  National 
Liberals,  who  stand  perhaps  closer  to  the  industrial 
interests  than  any  other  fraction.  Such  remedies  as 
lowering  the  tariff  were  rejected,  for  w^th  the  exception  of 
the  radical  groups,  German  economists  and  poHticians 
have  become  thoroughly  committed  to  the  protectionist 
ideal,  and  it  is  doubtful  even  if  the  Radicals  and  Social 
Democrats,  had  responsibility  fallen  upon  them  for 
lowering  duties  on  manufactured  products,  would  have 
shown  any  enthusiasm  for  this  part  of  their  official  party 

^  It  is  growing,  however.  The  German  Manufacturers'  Alliance 
{Zentralverband  deutscher  I ndustrielle)  has  taken  a  more  and  more  active 
part  in  legislative  campaigns.  At  the  annual  gathering  of  the  Alliance 
in  191 2  it  was  reported  that  at  the  Reichstag  election  in  Januar>-  of  that 
year,  1 20  candidates  —  in  the  main  probably  members  of  the  National 
Liberal  and  "Imperial"  parties  —  were  supported  by  the  electoral 
funds  of  the  organization,  41  of  them  being  elected.  In  return  for  this 
financial  assistance  the  candidates  were  obliged  to  pledge  themselves 
to  vote  according  to  the  policies  of  the  Alliance.  It  is  worth  noting 
that  as  in  the  case  of  the  .\grarian  League,  no  secret  was  made  of  the 
determination  to  protect  business  interests  by  influencing  the  election. 
A  promise  of  stUl  further  commercialization  of  political  life  was  the 
imion  in  the  summer  of  19 13  of  the  Association  just  named  with  the 
Alliance  of  the  Middle  Classes  (Reicksdeutscher  M ittdstandsverband) 
and  the  Agrarian  League  into  a  League  of  the  Producing  Classes  {Bund 
der  schaffenden  Sldnde),  with  the  avowed  object  of  fighting  further 
socialistic  legislation. 


1 66    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

programs.  The  two  remedies  for  the  restraint  of  trade 
that  the  syndicate  system  brings  with  it  which  have  been 
most  zealously  pushed  forward  are  a  temporary  sus- 
pension of  tariff  duties,  in  the  case  of  unjustifiably  high 
prices  or  a  shortage,  and  the  acquisition  of  industrial 
undertakings  by  the  government.  Both  of  these  policies 
met  the  approval  of  Liberal  and  Radical  fractions  in  the 
ReicJisiag  and  naturally  of  course  of  the  Social  Democrats. 
A  suspension  of  tariff  duties  is,  however,  a  blade  that 
cuts  both  ways;  for  such  a  suspension  might  easily 
lead  to  a  demand,  already  frequently  made,  for  a  sus- 
pension of  duties  on  meat  and  grain.  It  is  very  difficult 
to  say  when  the  moment  for  such  action  has  arrived. 
In  1907  and  again  in  191 2  a  tremendous  agitation  was 
carried  on  in  Germany  over  the  lack  of  meat,  and  the 
government  was  besieged  to  bring  in  a  bill  admitting 
Danish  and  Austrian  meat  free.  Violent  articles  in  the 
Radical  and  Social  Democratic  press,  and  even  in  the 
Liberal  papers,  and  violent  speeches  in  the  Reichstag 
and  Prussian  Landtag  led  to  investigations,  undertaken 
rather  reluctantly  by  the  government.  In  1907  the  net 
result  was  a  declaration  that  no  lack  of  meat  existed ; 
in  191 2  some  concessions  were  made  admitting  frozen 
meat  from  abroad.  The  other  alternative,  government 
purchase  of  industries,  is  a  part  of  the  Social  Democratic 
program,  but  the  German  government  has  never  shown 
itself  averse  to  socialistic  undertakings  when  it  seemed 
practicable  to  carry  them  out.  The  purchase  of  the 
Hercynia  potash  mine  by  the  Prussian  government  in 
1908  was  greeted  with  enthusiasm  by  almost  all  political 
parties  as  an  important  experiment.  In  matters  of 
business  organization  the  Germans  are  very  clear  sighted 
and  they  have  shown  a  determination  not  to  part  with 
their  birthright  to  the  syndicates. 

The  field  in  which  the  syndicating  process  has  been 
carried  to  the  furthest  point  of  development  is  in  the 
coal  mining  industry.     Here  in  the  Rhine  Westphalian 


LIBER.\LISM   AND   INDUSTRY  167 

district  it  has  been  said  that  six  men  control  the  entire 
production.  Naturally  the  wealth  and  power  centred 
in  a  few  hands  has  been  used  to  defend  pohtically  the 
interests  of  the  mine  owners :  it  was  alleged  in  the 
Reichstag  in  connection  with  the  coal  miners'  strike  of 
1907  that  the  head  of  the  coal  s>Tidicate  possessed  greater 
poUtical  power  than  the  minister  of  commerce.  This 
strike  of  1907  for  higher  wages  and  better  working  con- 
ditions was  vigorously  waged  not  only  by  the  Socialist 
labor  unions  but  by  the  Cathohc  unions  as  well.  Popu- 
lar prejudice  against  industrial  coercion  flamed  to  fever 
heat.  Collections  for  the  strikers  netted  considerable 
funds.  The  government  showed  itself  favorable  to  the 
workingmen  in  many  ways,  and  the  radical  wing  of  the 
Prussian  Diet  urged  the  nationaUzation  of  ail  the  coal 
mines.  The  strike  ended  with  a  victory  for  the  unions. 
That  a  similar  strike  in  the  spring  of  191 2  did  not  end 
in  a  similar  way  was  due  to  the  political  situation  and 
illustrates  in  a  rare  way  the  power  of  conservative  in- 
terests in  Prussia-Germany.  The  strike  of  1907  came  at 
a  time  when  the  government  was  seeking  to  carry  out 
a  great  national  program  of  colonial  development  and 
fleet-building  and  found  it  necessary  to  placate  the 
Clerical  champions  of  labor;  the  strike  of  191 2  followed 
closely  on  an  election  in  which  Radicals  and  Social 
Democrats,  working  frequently  together,  had  defeated 
the  forces  of  the  National  Liberals  and  Clericals  and 
Conservatives.  In  many  respects  this  strike  of  191 2 
was  a  typical  political  movement,  and  the  attitude  of 
the  government  and  the  various  parties  towards  it  was 
illuminating  for  social  and  political  conditions.  It  was 
called  by  the  Social  Democratic  unions,  who  were 
assisted  by  the  smaller  groups  of  organized  labor,  the 
so-called  Hirsch-Duncker,  or  non-poKtical,  unions  and 
the  Polish  unions.  It  was  estimated  that  in  all  two 
hundred  thousand  men  laid  down  their  tools  in  the 
Rhine-Westphalian   district,    to   which   the   strike   was 


1 68    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

mainly  confined.  Following,  as  we  have  seen,  a  general 
election  in  which  the  SociaKst  forces  had  made  great 
gains  at  the  expense  of  the  Clericals  and  Conservatives, 
it  was  impossible  to  keep  the  strike  from  having  a 
political  complexion.  In  addition,  the  great  English 
coal  strike  was  just  at  its  culmination  and  the  charge 
that  the  German  Socialists  had  ordered  their  strike  as  a 
part  of  an  international  attack  on  the  propertied  classes 
found  ready  behef  in  all  middle  class  circles.  "The 
German  coal  industry,  which  could  otherwise  absorb  a 
part  of  the  English  market  and  win  a  vantage  ground 
perhaps  for  all  time,  is  being  sacrificed  to  Socialist  inter- 
nationalism ! " 

There  was  not  much  doubt  of  the  justice  of  the 
economic  claims  of  the  miners,  which  included  a  15  per 
cent  increase  in  wages,  shorter  working  hours  and  other 
concessions,  such  as  the  estabhshment  of  intelligence 
offices  on  the  part  of  the  workingmen  themselves  and  a 
month's  notice  to  workingmen  tenants  in  mine  cottages 
before  eviction.  While  much  sympathy  was  expressed 
for  the  grievances  of  the  men,  the  national  dislike  of  the 
autocratic  coal  barons  was  qualified  by  a  fear  of  further 
Social  Democratic  successes.  By  a  hard  struggle  the 
Clerical  leaders  succeeded  in  preventing  the  "Christian'' 
or  Catholic  unions  from  joining  the  strike,  and  had  them 
sign  a  manifesto  declaring  their  wilKngness  to  go  to  work 
in  case  they  were  protected  from  violence.  The  Prus- 
sian government,  which  was  in  1907  distinctly  hostile  to 
the  operators,  in  191 2  refused  to  offer  its  mediation  to 
the  contestants  and  showed  itself  willing  to  use  every 
weapon  to  crush  disorder.  Of  course  with  a  large  element 
of  strike  breakers  from  the  rival  Christian  unions  the 
opportunities  for  cracking  heads  among  the  restless 
mining  population  of  centres  like  Essen,  Barmen  and 
Bochum  lay  right  at  hand,  and  there  is  no  denying  the 
fact  that  the  Socialist  strikers  were  guilty  of  many  in- 
stances of  brutality.     The  police,  which  in  the  larger 


LIBERALISM   AND   INDUSTRY  169 

places  are  directly  under  the  orders  of  the  Ministry  of  the 
Interior,  acted  with  the  energy  and  thoroughness  for 
which  the  Prussian  police  are  well  known.  Popular 
meetings  were  forbidden  in  many  places,  taverns  where 
the  strikers  held  their  gatherings  were  closed  or  threat- 
ened with  loss  of  Ucense,  strikers  were  ruthlessly  sabred 
on  slight  provocation.  Despite  the  protests  of  the 
Prussian  Minister  of  the  Interior  that  the  government 
was  acting  merely  to  protect  property  and  with  entire 
impartiality,  the  Radical  and  Socialist  members  of  the 
Reichstag  and  the  Prussian  Landtag  fairly  boiled  with 
rage.  When  the  government  declined  to  offer  arbitra- 
tion to  the  contending  parties,  the  Prussian  Minister  of 
the  Interior  was  denounced  in  parliament  as  an  "attor- 
ney for  the  striking  operators."  The  head  of  the  coal 
syndicate  was  called  the  "uncrowned  king  of  Prussia," 
and  it  was  declared  that  he  had  threatened  to  "drown 
the  strike  in  blood."  When  it  became  evident  that  the 
strike  could  not  be  won  in  the  face  of  the  government 
and  of  the  Catholic  unions,  the  Socialist  leaders  called 
their  well-drilled  adherents  back  to  work. 

In  this  struggle  of  conservative  against  radical  forces 
it  is  of  interest  to  see  how  the  National  Liberal  party 
stood.  As  the  successors  of  the  old  Liberal  party, 
which  had  hoped  to  reform  Prussia  on  the  lines  of  British 
parliamentary  government,  one  would  expect  that  they 
would  have  sought  to  intermediate  between  a  feudal- 
clerical  conservatism  and  an  ail-too  rapid  progress  tow- 
ard socialism :  as  the  representatives  of  a  constitutional 
and  limited  monarchy  on  the  one  side  and  a  strongly 
patriotic  national  spirit  on  the  other,  it  was  to  them 
that  friends  of  constitutional  progress  would  naturally 
look.  But  in  the  parliamentary  struggles  that  took 
place  in  connection  with  the  coal  strike,  National  Liberal 
sympathy  went  to  the  coal  operators.  This  is  typical. 
The  party  which  fell  heir  to  the  enthusiasm  of  1848  and 
which  should  have  been  the  best  arbitrator  between 


lyo    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

capital  and  labor,  had  not  been  able  to  resist  the  dis- 
solving power  of  economic  forces,  any  more  than  any 
other  party.  After  the  spHt  on  the  tariff  question  in 
1879  and  further  losses  in  1880,  the  party  became  emas- 
culated. Its  more  progressive  members  had  gone  into 
the  ranks  of  the  Radicals  {Freisinnigen,  cf.  page  118), 
and  while  those  who  remained  behind  still  claimed  to  be 
the  representatives  of  a  strongly  national  party,  the 
lack  of  a  definite  social  program  drove  them  more  and 
more  into  a  position  of  dignified  reaction.  No  party  in 
Germany  can  claim  so  great  a  number  from  the  intellec- 
tual classes :  in  the  National  Liberal  ranks  are  to  be 
found  distinguished  industriahsts,  university  professors, 
eminent  professional  men  and  scientists.  There  are  no 
better  speakers  in  the  Reichstag  than  the  National 
Liberals,  and  in  times  of  national  crisis,  they  always 
distinguish  themselves  by  their  defense  of  the  national 
honor. 

In  spite  of  their  enthusiasm  for  a  greater  Germany, 
the  various  elements  in  liberalism  have  lacked  the 
cementing  force  of  some  economic  interest,  and  all  of 
the  brilhance  of  orators  and  statesmen  like  Bassermann 
and  Paasche  has  not  been  able  to  replace  this  lack. 
Manufacturers  and  merchants,  professors  and  scientists 
have  not  the  common  financial  interest  which  has  lent 
such  vigor  to  the  advance  of  agrarian  and  socialist. 
The  heterogeneous  nature  of  the  party  has  forced  it  to 
take  a  middle  course  and  given  to  its  attitude  on  all  ques- 
tions not  connected  directly  with  imperial  poHcies  an 
air  of  uncertainty.  In  general,  its  economic  poHcy  is 
that  of  the  large  industrialists,  who  compose  an  in- 
fluential part  of  its  membership :  it  stands  for  a  protec- 
tive tariff  on  German  industries,  opposes  additions  to  the 
duties  on  foodstuffs,  and  advocates  the  regulation  of 
imperial  finances  through  income  and  inheritance  taxes. 
It  has  on  most  occasions  opposed  feudal  privileges  in  the 
army  and  the  bureaucracy  and  fought  for  a  revision  of 


LIBERALISM  AND   INDUSTRY  171 

the  Prussian  constitution.  Representing  the  new  aris- 
tocracy of  industriaUsm,  it  has  opposed  to  the  Junker 
the  liberal  ideas  of  a  constitutional  monarchy,  and  has 
in  the  main  striven  to  impose  on  the  will  of  the  monarch 
the  bonds  of  a  responsible  ministry. 

All  of  these  things,  however,  have  been  a  matter  rather 
of  program  and  of  forensic  display  than  of  actual  parlia- 
mentary tactics.  The  reason  for  this  lies  right  at  hand, 
and  is  to  be  found  in  the  fear  of  the  Social  Democrats, 
a  feeling  which  has  driven  the  National  Liberals  and  the 
upper  middle  classes  in  general  into  a  reactionary  posi- 
tion. The  hostiUty  is  not  merely  that  of  the  monarchist 
and  the  defender  of  the  constitutional  state  to  the  party 
of  social  revolution,  but  it  has  in  it  much  of  the  class 
feehng  of  the  capitahst.  It  is  not  only  that  the  Social 
Democrats  have  been  in  middle  class  eyes  international- 
ists, enemies  of  that  Fatherland  whose  greatness  and 
prosperity  the  National  Liberals  have  regarded  as  their 
own  peculiar  work,  they  have  represented  also  the  serried 
ranks  of  organized  labor,  which  are  always  drawn  up  in 
line  of  battle  against  the  captains  and  lieutenants  of 
industry.  Thus  the  old  Liberals  have  been  forced  more 
and  more  towards  the  Right.  In  second  ballotings  the 
National  Liberal  electors,  so  far  as  they  could  be  con- 
trolled by  their  leaders,  have  regularly  voted  for  the 
Conservative  and  even  the  Clerical  candidate  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  Social  Democrat ;  in  the  imperial  and  national 
parliaments  these  representatives  of  the  middle  class 
have  more  than  once  been  manoeuvred  into  a  position 
where  they  were  obliged  to  oppose  policies  to  which 
they  were  deeply  committed  in  order  to  avoid  carrying 
them  through  with  Social  Democratic  votes.  Thus, 
while  in  1909  the  party  supported  the  inheritance  tax 
and  retired  from,  the  coalition  with  the  Conservatives  on 
this  account,  yet  when  an  opportunity  came  in  191 2  to 
force  the  government  to  introduce  a  bill  providing  for 
such  a  tax  to  cover  the  new  military  and  naval  budget, 


172     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

the  National  Liberal  leaders  declined  to  take  advantage 
of  the  majority  for  such  a  measure  which  actually  existed 
in  the  Reichstag  and  voted  with  the  Conservatives  and 
Clericals  rather  than  ally  themselves  with  the  enemies 
of  the  capitalistic  state. 

It  hes  in  the  nature  of  liberal  parties  to  resist  discipline. 
Reform  and  the  struggle  against  privilege  bring  strong 
individuahties  to  the  front  and  tend  to  produce  theories 
and  programs  that  will  not  harmonize.  There  have 
been  many  signs  that  in  spite  of  the  conciliatory  clever- 
ness of  their  leader,  Bassermann,  the  old  National  Liberal 
party  is  once  more  in  process  of  losing  its  radical  wing. 
Half  hberal,  half  democratic,  the  party  teetered  between 
progress  and  reaction  until  two  distinct  factions  formed 
which  submitted  themselves  with  growing  ill  grace  to  the 
discipline  of  the  party  convention.  The  tendency  to 
reaction,  which  manifested  itself  in  opposition  to  the 
Social  Democrats  and  was  ready  to  go  to  the  Hmit  in  the 
repression  of  labor  manifestations,  resulted  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Old  Liberal  Alliance,  which  favored  coopera- 
tion with  the  Conservatives  in  matters  of  social  legisla- 
tion; the  democratic  wing,  standing  for  an  aggressive 
program  in  cooperation  with  Radical  and  Socialist,  or- 
ganized in  1901  a  "  Young  Liberal  Association,  '  out  of 
which  has  come  a  strengthening  of  advanced  liberalism. 

The  dream  of  1909  and  the  years  immediately  follow- 
ing of  a  grand  coalition  of  all  hberal  and  radical  forces 
"from  Bassermann  to  Bebel"  proved  only  a  dream. 
The  Reichstag  of  191 2,  in  which  the  National  Liberals 
held  the  balance  of  power  between  Clericals  and  Con- 
servatives on  the  one  side  and  Radicals  and  Socialists  on 
the  other,  showed  that  a  liberal-socialist  alliance  was 
still  impossible.  It  did,  however,  show  the  possibiHty 
of  the  working  together  of  democratic-socialist  forces. 
In  almost  all  the  major  questions,  both  in  house  and 
committee,  the  representatives  of  the  Radicals  {Fort- 
schrittliche  Volkspartei)  and  the  Social  Democrats  found 


LIBERALISM   AND   INDUSTRY  173 

themselves  aligned  together,  except  in  the  question  of 
the  national  defenses,  on  which,  until  the  breaking  out 
of  war,  the  SociaUsts  maintained  their  traditional  atti- 
tude of  negation. 

The  Radical  Party  is  a  good  illustration  of  the  de- 
ficiency in  organizing  power  inherent  in  reform  parties, 
and  also  of  Bismarck's  assertion  that  the  question  in 
German  politics  is  not  so  much  one  of  the  theories  as  of 
Paul  and  Cephas.  Composed  at  first  mostly  of  South 
Germans,  who  brought  into  the  new  empire  the  repub- 
lican enthusiasm  of  1848,  it  was  an  unimportant  fraction 
in  German  political  hfe  until  after  the  economic  split  in 
the  liberal  ranks.  It  emerged  from  the  reorganization  of 
Kberalism  as  the  German  Radical  Party  (Deutsche 
Freisinnige  Partei),  and  became  after  1884  distinctly  a 
party  of  protest,  forming  under  the  clever  tactician 
Eugene  Richter,  a  constant  stumbhng  block  in  the  path 
of  Bismarck.  As  old  liberalism  went  to  pieces  on  the 
tariff,  so  the  Radical  party  split  on  the  question  of  na- 
tional growth.  In  1893  it  divided  on  the  question  of 
national  defenses,  both  wings  still  advocating  a  policy 
of  free  trade  and  parliamentary  government.  After  a 
long  and  weary  campaign  all  of  the  radical-democratic 
elements  were  finally  united  in  1910  into  the  Progressive 
People's  Party  {Fortschrittliche  Volkspartei),  in  which 
North  German  monarchists  and  not  a  few  South  Ger- 
man republicans  agreed  to  bury  minor  differences  in 
support  of  a  national  and  democratic  poHcy.  Represent- 
ing as  it  does  the  commercial  rather  than  the  manufactur- 
ing classes,  it  has  stood  for  freedom  of  trade,  although 
it  is  doubtful  whether  the  Radicals  any  more  than  the 
Social  Democrats  would  on  a  pinch  support  any  aban- 
donment of  Germany's  protective  policy.  With  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  the  trading  classes  behind  it,  the 
party  has  many  aims  in  common  with  the  Socialists,  and 
has  not  hesitated  to  support  Social  Democratic  candidates 
in  the  bye-elections  nor  socialistic  pohcies  in  parliament. 


174    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

It  is  heartily  opposed  to  feudal  privileges  in  army  and 
bureaucracy,  and  as  it  contains  many  men  of  anti- 
monarchical  principles,  it  has  been  less  inclined  to  take 
fright  at  the  blustering  attacks  of  the  Socialists  on 
royalty.  While  it  does  not  count  among  its  members 
so  many  brilliant  intellectuals  as  the  National  Liberals, 
it  has  boasted  of  many  first-class  economists  and  statis- 
ticians, like  George  Gothein,  and  publicists,  hke  Fried- 
rich  Naumann ;  and  some  of  the  best  organized  and  most 
widely  circulated  daily  papers,  particularly  certain 
journals  under  Jewish  influences,  like  the  Frankfurter 
Zeitung  and  the  Berliner  Tageblatt,  support  either  directly 
or  indirectly  the  Radical  program.  With  the  growth  of 
the  national  spirit  among  middle  class  Germans,  the 
party  lost  something  of  its  "little  German"  spirit,  and 
after  1907  became  committed  to  a  policy  of  increasing 
the  national  defenses  through  strengthening  the  army 
and  navy  and  to  a  support  of  colonial  interests.  The 
recession  from  doctrinaire  radicalism  brought  immedi- 
ately a  gain  in  strength  and  prestige.  The  readiness  of 
the  Radical  leaders  in  general  and  bye-elections  to  co- 
operate with  the  Social  Democrats  won  further  parlia- 
mentary seats  and  gave  the  party  an  important  strategic 
position  in  German  political  life.  Thus,  as  we  have  seen 
(page  136),  in  the  Reichstag  of  191 2  two  members  of  the 
Progressive  People's  Party  were  chosen  to  the  presidency 
of  the  Imperial  Diet. 


PART    III 
THE  EMPIRE'S   PROBLEMS 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  Proletarian  in  Politics 

If  we  were  obliged  to  cover  with  one  word  the  develop- 
ment of  Germany  in  the  four  decades  between  the  two 
great  wars,  that  word  would  certainly  be  "socialism." 
It  is  not  merely  that  in  philosophy,  hterature  and  art 
the  welfare  of  the  masses  is  the  leading  motif  running 
through  the  eighties  and  nineties  until  it  became  lost 
after  1900  in  the  swelling  music  of  national  ambition. 
In  the  field  of  political  economy  also  sociahstic  ideas 
marked  the  age.  They  began  by  conquering  the 
professorial  chairs  in  the  universities  in  the  seventies, 
where  such  ''socialists  of  the  chair"  as  Adolf  Wagner 
of  the  university  of  Berlin  set  their  stamp  on  the  genera- 
tion of  political  economists  which  followed  the  war  with 
France,  and  they  found  expression  in  the  compulsory 
insurance  measures  and  similar  legislation  of  the  follow- 
ing decade.  Such  ideas  were  indeed  nothing  new  in 
Germany  since  the  sixteenth  century,  when  cities  such 
as  Augsburg  and  Strasburg  were  models  of  a  hard  and 
fast  organization,  in  which  capital  played  a  small  part  and 
the  workers  formed  the  commonwealth  on  the  principle 
of  a  closed  shop,  where  communal  undertakings  largely 
supplanted  private  enterprise  and  every  detail  of  life, 
including  the  details  of  food  and  dress,  was  fixed  by 
law.  The  paternalism  of  the  petty  despotisms  which 
preceded  German  unity  had  disciplined  the  Germans  to 
Kve  under  efficient  supervision,  and  the  ideals  of  the 
Manchester  school  of  British  economists  did  not  take 
lasting  hold  on  German  economic  life. 
N  177 


178    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Socialism  then  grew  in  Germany  on  well-prepared 
soil.  State  ownership  of  railroad  and  telegraph  had 
come  naturally  soon  after  the  coming  of  these  utilities, 
and  municipal  control  of  many  forms  of  enterprise  de- 
scended as  a  tradition  from  the  later  middle  ages.  That 
the  individual  should  look  to  the  government  to  provide 
for  his  welfare  and  that  state  and  communal  funds 
should  supplant  private  capital  in  many  undertakings 
had  long  been  the  case  when  Bismarck  undertook  his 
compulsory  insurance  policy  in  the  eighties.  This 
program  was,  as  we  have  seen,  an  effort  to  strike  the 
ground  from  beneath  the  Social  Democrats  by  removing 
some  of  the  causes  of  proletarian  dissatisfaction.  Here 
and  there  Bismarck's  successors  went  further  on  the 
road,  with  such  measures  as  the  purchase  of  the 
Eercynia  potash  mine  (cf.  page  166).  That  they  did 
not  go  still  further  in  this  and  other  fields  of  state 
socialism  was  due  in  large  measure  to  the  existence  of 
the  Social  Democratic  party.  This  Ishmael  in  Ger- 
many's political  life  by  its  very  advocacy  of  measures 
made  them  impossible  for  the  government 

What  is  it  that  has  made  the  Socialist  unfitted  to  be 
an  ally  and  unwelcome  as  a  coworker  with  nearly  all 
other  parties?  What  is  there  in  the  advocacy  by  the 
Social  Democrats  of  any  reform  that  has  caused  not 
only  the  East  Elbian  Junker  and  the  Westphalian 
manufacturer,  but  even  the  National  Liberal  physician 
and  shopkeeper  to  look  askance  at  it?  The  answer  is 
to  be  found  both  in  the  doctrinaire  character  of  the 
party  and  in  the  violence  of  SociaKst  editors  and  orators. 
Karl  Lamprecht  has  shown  that  all  German  political 
parties  are  antiquated  in  that  all  cling  to  formulas  and 
doctrines  that  have  outlived  their  applicability  to 
present-day  affairs.  In  this  sense  the  Social  Democratic 
party  is  the  most  antiquated  and  the  least  opportunist. 
In  this  has  lain  its  strength  as  a  class  party  and  its 
weakness    in    electoral    and    parliamentary    strategy. 


THE  PROLETARIAN  IN  POLITICS  179 

Beginning  with  the  removal  of  the  coercive  laws  in  1890, 
it  cast  at  all  national  elections  the  largest  vote  of  any 
party,  and  after  1903  held  under  its  discipline  nearly 
one-third  of  all  the  electors  to  the  national  parliament, 
more  than  all  the  other  Liberal  fractions  combined. 
Nevertheless  it  exercised  less  influence  on  legislation 
than  any  other  of  the  major  groups  in  the  empire.  To 
understand  the  reason  for  this  one  must  glance  at  the 
development  of  socialism  as  a  poUtical  force. 

When  in  1867  Friedrich  Liebknecht  and  August 
Bebel  were  elected  to  the  first  Reichstag  of  the  new-born 
North  German  Confederation,  they  found  ready  at 
hand  both  the  gospel  of  sociahsm  in  the  works  of  Karl 
Marx  and  the  needed  fighting  force  in  the  German 
Workingmen's  Party  (Allgemeiner  Deutscher  Arheiter- 
Verein),  which  had  been  founded  four  years  earlier  by 
Ferdinand  Lassalle.  Two  years  later  at  the  famous 
Eisenach  Convention  Liebknecht  and  Bebel  called  the 
Social  Democratic  Workingmen's  Party  into  existence, 
on  a  platform  built  of  Marx'  theory  of  the  destructive 
rule  of  capital  and  his  call  to  the  workingmen  of  all 
lands  to  unite,  and  finally  in  1875  the  followers  of  Las- 
salle forsook  their  nationalistic  ideals  and  were  won  over 
to  the  internationalism  of  the  Marxists.  Immediately 
the  triumphal  march  of  the  Social  Democrats  began,  a 
march  which  has  continued  with  few  halts  since.  Aided 
by  the  hardships  brought  on  by  the  financial  crises  of 
the  seventies,  the  Marxian  theories  of  the  misery  caused 
by  the  capitalistic  state  and  the  exploitation  of  the  work- 
ing class  through  the  capitahstic  organization  of  society 
found  eager  acceptance  in  all  quarters  of  industrial 
Germany.  Already  in  1876  there  were  twenty-four 
papers  and  journals  published  in  the  interest  of  the 
party  with  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  subscribers : 
by  the  next  year  the  number  of  party  periodicals  had 
increased  to  forty-one,  and  that  year  the  party  cast 
nearly  half  a  million  votes  and  elected  twelve  members 


i8o    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

to  the  national  legislature.  From  that  time  the  Social 
Democracy  kept  pace  closely  with  the  forward  move- 
ment of  industrial  Germany.  Wherever  factories  sprang 
up  and  workmen  came  to  live  together,  the  theories  of 
Marx  took  root.  The  workingmen  were  organized  into 
Socialist  unions,  which  became  at  once  fighting  units 
in  the  industries  and  the  elections;  with  the  capacity 
for  organization  so  characteristic  of  an  industrial  age 
and  of  German  society  in  particular,  the  Social  Democ- 
racy was  solidified  by  the  establishment  of  central 
bureaus  under  the  control  of  secretaries.  These  latter 
quickly  developed  into  a  class  of  experienced  leaders, 
at  once  clever  agitators  in  the  industries  and  skillful 
strategists  in  poKtical  campaigns. 

Bismarck  watched  the  rise  of  the  party  and  its  often 
unscrupulous  means  of  agitation  with  growing  distrust. 
He  put  no  confidence  in  the  alleged  peaceful  program 
of  sociahsm :  for  him  the  party  bore  nothing  but  red 
revolution  on  its  banners.  In  1878  two  attempts  were 
made  on  the  life  of  Emperor  William  which  were  un- 
justly ascribed  to  the  effect  of  sociahst  agitation;  and 
the  Chancellor  took  advantage  of  the  popular  outcry 
to  dissolve  the  Liberal  Reichstag  and  appeal  to  the  elec- 
tors on  an  anti-socialist  program.  The  result  was  the 
enactment  of  rigid  laws  forbidding  Socialist  propaganda. 
The  following  ten  years,  1880  to  1890,  were  for  the  party 
a  period  of  almost  subterranean  existence.  Clubs 
were  suppressed,  newspapers  and  journals  confiscated, 
many  of  the  leaders,  Liebknecht  and  Bebel  among  them, 
went  to  prison.  In  spite  of  prosecution  and  imprison- 
ment, however,  the  propaganda  went  straight  ahead. 
Political  clubs  were  reorganized  as  singing  societies  and 
bowling  clubs  and  the  party  organization  v/as  perpet- 
uated by  these  and  by  the  trade  unions,  which  con- 
tinued to  spread  like  a  vast  network  throughout  in- 
dustrial Germany.  During  the  ten  years  of  the  anti- 
socialist  laws  the  total  vote  of  the  party  increased,  a 


THE  PROLETARIAN  IN  POLITICS  i8i 

larger  number  of  deputies  was  chosen  to  the  Reichstag, 
and  more  important  still,  the  inner  organization  and 
solidity  of  the  party  gained  tremendously  under  per- 
secution. This  was  shown  immediately  on  the  expiration 
of  the  anti-socialist  laws  in  1890.  In  that  year  the 
party  cast  nearly  one  and  one-half  million  votes  in  the 
national  elections,  and  became  thereby  the  strongest 
party  in  the  empire.  In  1898  the  Social  Democratic 
vote  had  risen  to  two  milHons,  in  1907  to  three  and  one 
quarter  millions,  in  191 2  to  more  than  four  and  one- 
quarter  millions,  more  than  one-third  of  all  votes  cast 
in  the  imperial  elections  of  that  year. 

The  great  Chancellor  was,  however,  too  far-seeing  a 
statesman  to  think  that  the  mere  forbidding  of  socialist 
propaganda  would  stop  the  growth  of  socialism,  which 
to  his  mind  was  only  revolution  in  disguise.  He  set 
out,  as  we  have  seen,  to  cut  the  ground  from  beneath 
the  feet  of  the  proletarian  agitators  by  a  system  of  legis- 
lation which  should  ban  from  the  empire  the  direst 
poverty  by  insuring  to  the  working  class  compensation 
in  case  of  injury  and  care  in  sickness  and  old  age.  These 
needs,  which  were  outlined  in  an  imperial  message  of 
1 88 1,  formed  the  basis  of  debate  and  experiment  through 
the  following  eight  years  and  were  finally  met  in  the 
various  compulsory  insurance  measures  which,  so  to 
speak,  set  their  stamp  upon  Germany's  internal  politics 
in  the  eighties.  In  the  Workingmen's  Compensation 
or  Accident  Insurance  Act  of  1884,  the  burden  of  insur- 
ance was  laid  entirely  upon  the  employer;  the  cost  of 
the  Sick  Insurance  Act  of  1883  fell  upon  both  employer 
and  employee ;  for  carrying  out  the  provisions  of  the 
Old  Age  Pension  Act  of  1889,  the  empire  joined  with 
both  capital  and  labor  in  providing  for  the  veterans  of 
labor.  By  this  legislation,  which  though  several  times 
amended  in  minor  parts,  has  remained  essentially  the 
same,  Germany  took  a  long  step  in  the  direction  of 
state   socialism   and    assumed    the   first   place   among 


1 82     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

nations  in  the  protection  of  its  army  of  labor.  Both 
Radical  and  Socialist  have  found  much  to  criticise  in  the 
laws,  and  the  amendments  which  reformers  suggested 
should  long  ago  have  received  attention  at  the  hands  of 
the  government ;  nevertheless,  with  all  of  their  imperfec- 
tions, the  compulsory  insurance  acts  have  been  a  guiding 
star  for  the  social  legislation  of  other  lands  and  one  of  the 
brightest  decorations  on  the  bosom  of  modern  Germania. 
They  are  no  less  a  superb  monument  to  the  liberal  view 
and  modern  spirit  of  Bismarck  in  social  legislation. 

But  they  did  not  win  over  the  Socialists.  The  rep- 
resentatives of  the  fourth  estate  accepted  the  socialistic 
laws  of  the  eighties  not  as  a  gift  from  the  hands  of  be- 
nevolent capital,  but  as  a  right  conceded  through  the  fear 
of  the  rising  strength  of  the  proletariat.  There  is 
evidence  that  the  old  Chancellor  had  wearied  of  the 
struggle  to  win  the  working  classes  to  a  national  and 
patriotic  spirit  and  that  at  the  expiration  of  the  anti- 
socialist  laws  in  1890  he  was  preparing  a  stroke  against 
the  constitution,  which  by  the  aboHtion  of  manhood 
suffrage  should  undo  the  work  of  1866  and  exclude  the 
non-propertied  classes  from  a  share  in  government 
(cf.  page  127).  However,  young  Emperor  William 
thought  otherwise,  and  with  the  fall  of  Bismarck,  legisla- 
tion against  the  Social  Democracy  was  dropped  and  the 
Emperor  sought  to  accomplish  by  conciliation  what 
suppressive  laws  had  failed  to  do.  He  summoned  an 
international  congress  in  Berlin  to  consider  measures 
for  the  further  welfare  of  the  working  classes,  and  out- 
Uned  for  adoption  various  propositions,  such  as  a  com- 
plete Sunday  holiday,  which  had  been  advocated  in 
the  Socialist  platform.  But  the  effort  to  win  the 
workingmen  to  fealty  to  monarch  and  Fathicrland  by 
kindness  broke  against  the  hard  class  consciousness 
of  the  fourth  estate.  No  royal  enticements  could  pre- 
vail against  the  teachings  of  Marx,  ably  and  speciously 
interpreted  by  Socialist  speakers,  no  words  01  the  sover- 


THE  PROLETARIAN  IN  POLITICS  183 

eign  could  make  progress  against  the  class  feeling  which 
had  been  bred  in  the  industrial  proletariat  for  two  de- 
cades in  trade  union,  tavern  debating  club  and  Socialist 
journal.  From  that  day  on  the  crown  and  indeed  all 
of  the  upper  classes  and  a  large  part  of  the  middle  classes 
in  Germany  parted  company  with  the  proletariat. 
Henceforth  every  representative  of  the  existing  organiza- 
tion of  society  from  the  sovereign  to  the  Rhenish  crock- 
ery dealer  denounced  the  Social  Democrats  as  enemies 
of  the  Fatherland.  But  whether  ridiculed  as  a  "  transi- 
tory phase"  or  threatened  with  a  holy  war  of  extermina- 
tion by  "all  lovers  of  God  and  Fatherland,"  the  Social- 
ist forces  marched  on  in  ever  increasing  numbers,  a 
soHd  phalanx  of  industrial  workers,  soaked  with  the 
doctrines  of  Marx  and  Engel  and  ably  led  by  labor 
secretary  and  editor. 

In  his  opposition  to  the  monarchy  and  the  entire 
capitalistic  state,  the  Social  Democrat  included  of 
course  the  army,  under  feudal  and  capitalistic  leader- 
ship. Nowhere,  however,  has  the  German  military 
spirit  found  better  expression  than  in  the  organization 
and  discipline  of  the  Social  Democratic  party.  Who 
could  watch  the  orderly,  shoulder  to  shoulder  march  of 
tens  of  thousands  of  workingmen  through  the  streets  of 
Berhn  on  the  occasion  of  the  burial  of  a  leader  or  on  the 
anniversary  of  the  "victims  of  March,"  the  revolution- 
ists who  fell  in  the  street  fighting  of  March  1848,  with- 
out seeing  in  imagination  these  same  men  clad  in  the 
blue  and  red  or  khaki  of  active  soldiers?  And  who 
could  see  the  eyes-to-the-front,  fingers-on-the-trouser- 
seam  carriage  with  which  the  individual  workman 
follows  his  leader  in  strike  or  electoral  campaign  with- 
out recalHng  the  Prussian  military  discipHne?  In 
August  191 1  at  Treptow,  a  suburb  of  Berhn,  a  mighty 
SociaUst  demonstration  was  made  against  the  threatened 
war  with  France  and  England  over  the  Morocco  affair. 
A  vast  crowd  of  men  and  women,  estimated  at  eighty 


1 84    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

thousand,  gathered  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  about  a 
tribune  to  hear  their  leaders  denounce  war  as  a  diabolical 
game  at  which  the  capitalist  must  win  and  the  proleta- 
rian lose.  Only  a  few  of  the  mighty  audience  could 
hear  a  word  of  the  orators,  but  all  stood  at  respectful 
attention  in  the  intense  heat  until  the  speeches  were 
over  and  then  at  a  given  signal  waved  their  arms  in  a 
mighty  storm  wave,  voting  affirmatively  on  a  resolution 
which  protested  in  the  name  of  labor  against  the 
threatened  war.  And  throughout  the  day  not  one 
case  of  disorder,  scarcely  even  a  chance  hard  word  at 
an  over-officious  pohceman,  among  the  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  workingmen  and  workingwomen  who  spent 
the  hot  Sunday  journeying  back  and  forth  from  their 
homes  in  almost  all  parts  of  Greater  Berlin ! 

The  same  iron  discipline  that  has  taught  moulder 
and  stoker  and  street  paver  that  he  owes  it  to  his  class 
to  suppress  even  a  natural  outburst  of  resentment,  be- 
cause it  may  give  the  representatives  of  feudalism  and 
capitalism  an  advantage,  holds  sway  over  leader  and 
editor.  The  annual  party  convention,  the  Farteitag, 
is  the  court  of  last  resort,  before  which  even  those  high- 
est in  the  councils  of  the  party  must  appear  and  justify 
their  actions.  Prominent  Sociahsts,  including  some  of 
the  leading  parliamentarians  of  the  party  and  the  editors 
of  such  journals  as  Vorwarts  and  the  Sozialistische 
Monatshefte,  have  been  called  upon  to  defend  the 
orthodoxy  of  their  faith,  and  prominent  leaders  have 
been  unceremoniously  thrust  out  of  the  party.  It 
became  an  accepted  canon  that  when  a  man  found  that 
his  position,  reached  after  scientific  inquiry,  was  no 
longer  that  of  the  party,  and  when  he  could  not  persuade 
the  party  to  accept  his  position,  he  was  by  that  very 
fact  no  longer  a  Social  Democrat.  This  tyranny  of  the 
majority  was  due  not  merely  to  a  democratic  intoler- 
ance of  strong  individuaUties,  it  proceeded  also  from  the 
extreme  doctrinarianism  of  the  party. 


THE  PROLETARIAN  IN  POLITICS  185 

This  doctrinarianism  is  the  very  bone  of  the  Social 
Democracy.  No  orthodox  theologian  of  years  agone 
ever  clung  to  the  verbal  inspiration  of  Holy  Writ  with 
greater  zeal  than  Socialist  orator  and  editor  and  pri- 
vate soldier  have  held  to  every  jot  and  tittle  of  the 
Erfurt  Platform.  This  declaration  of  faith  was  adopted 
in  1891,  soon  after  the  expiration  of  the  anti-socialist 
laws,  and  has  had  no  official  revision  since.  It  could 
not  be  expected,  however,  that  the  Marxian  theories, 
as  enunciated  in  that  instrument,  would  stand  un- 
impaired by  the  experience  of  the  passing  years,  and 
even  the  most  devout  Socialist  must  acknowledge  that 
some  planks  in  the  Erfurt  Platform  have  been  shown 
to  be  fallacies  by  the  industrial  history  of  the  past 
few  decades  in  Germany.  Of  none  is  this  more  strik- 
ingly true  than  of  the  so-called  "iron  law  of  wages," 
according  to  which  the  condition  of  the  workingman 
under  the  capitalistic  system  must  constantly  grow 
worse.  This  dogma  has  been  absolutely  contradicted 
by  the  facts.  The  general  condition  of  industrial  labor 
in  Germany  has  constantly  grown  better,  and  as  the 
years  have  passed  not  a  few  of  the  proletariat  have  be- 
come themselves  members  of  the  capitalistic  class. 

These  conditions  were  recognized  quite  early  by  Social 
Democrats  of  more  liberal  training.  The  first  bold 
reformer  to  attempt  to  bring  socialism  down  from  the 
domain  of  dreams  to  economic  reality  was  Edward 
Bernstein  in  a  memorable  brochure  published  in  1899 
{Die  V oraussetzungen  des  Sozialismus  und  die  Aufgahen 
der  Sozialdemokratie) }  The  author,  who  had  suffered  in 
his  own  person  for  his  adherence  to  the  Marxian  faith 
in  the  days  of  the  anti-Socialist  laws,  proposed  a  revi- 
sion of  the  old  Marxian  theories  in  the  Hght  of  present- 
day  economic  and  social  life,  "the  development  of  the 
theory  and  practice  of  the  Social  Democracy  in  an  evolu- 
tionistic  sense."  The  first  point  of  his  attack  was  the 
*  The  Basis  of  Socialism  and  the  Task  of  the  Social  Democracy. 


1 86    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

time-honored  premise  of  the  ''iron  law  of  wages."  The 
condition  of  the  working  classes,  he  contended,  is  not 
growing  worse  but  better.  Furthermore,  not  all  means 
of  production  are  to  be  socialized,  as  is  demanded  in 
the  Erfurt  Platform,  but  only  land  and  the  larger  means 
of  production,  and  as  a  very  important  reservation, 
one  must  avoid  anything  which  would  injure  the  nation 
in  its  competition  for  trade  with  foreign  countries.  This 
attack  on  the  major  premise  of  the  Erfurt  Platform  and 
this  modification  of  its  first  article  instantly  called  into 
the  ring  a  host  of  defenders  of  sociahstic  orthodoxy. 
August  Bebel,  the  parliamentary  generalissimo,  Karl 
Kautsky,  the  learned  dogmatist,  and  others  rushed  to 
arms  in  defense  of  the  Marxian  theories  and  the  battle 
was  on  between  "Radicals"  and  "Revisionists,"  the 
former  ably  led  by  Kautsky  in  the  Neue  Zeit,  the  latter 
by  Bernstein  in  the  Sozialistische  Mmiatshefte.  The 
struggle  reached  its  culmination  in  the  Dresden  conven- 
tion of  1903,  a  convention  which  will  long  be  remembered 
in  German  political  annals  as  the  highwater  mark  of 
violence  and  "rough-house"  tactics.  The  result  was  a 
defeat  for  the  "Revisionists,"  less  on  scientific  than  on 
tactical  grounds,  the  "Radicals"  claiming  that  any  con- 
cession to  the  "middle-class  parties,"  whether  in  theory 
or  practice,  would  result  in  weakening  the  feeling  of 
class  consciousness  upon  which  the  Social  Democracy 
is  built. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  practice  ran  away  with 
theory.  The  exigencies  of  electoral  and  parliamentary 
struggles  drew  the  party  more  and  more  into  coopera- 
tion with  the  Liberal  Left,  and  tended  more  and 
more  to  transform  the  revolutionary  Socialists,  despite 
themselves,  into  political  democrats.  Liebknecht,  the 
founder,  with  truly  doctrinaire  consistency,  had  held 
that  the  party  existed  as  a  protest  against  the  capitalistic 
organization  of  society  and  should  therefore  take  no 
part  in  parHamentary  affairs,  except  in  protest.    In  the 


THE  PROLETARIAN  IN   POLITICS  187 

days  of  the  anti-socialist  laws,  the  Social  Democratic 
members  of  the  Reichstag  refused  to  accept  membership 
on  committees.  The  first  break  in  this  policy  of  simple 
negation  came  from  South  Germany,  where  as  a  result 
of  more  democratic  constitutions,  the  working  classes 
had  been  accustomed  to  a  share  in  governmental  re- 
sponsibilities. A  Bavarian  deputy,  Vollmar,  as  early  as 
1 89 1,  came  out  strongly  against  the  attitude  of  sulk- 
ing, and  demanded  that  the  party,  deferring  its  ultimate 
aim,  the  socialization  of  industry,  should  cooperate  with 
the  middle-class  parties  in  winning  immediate  advantages 
for  the  working  class.  In  spite  of  the  bitter  opposition 
of  the  Prussian  irreconcilables,  a  revision  of  the  party's 
program  in  this  respect  actually  took  place.  With  the 
growth  of  Socialist  representation  in  the  Reichstag, 
their  work  on  the  committees  became  more  and  more 
important,  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  session  of  191 2 
a  Socialist  presided  for  a  time  over  the  national  parlia- 
ment. While  the  fraction  continued  to  vote  steadily 
against  all  military  and  naval  supplies  and  against  the 
prosecution  of  colonial  development,  signs  multiplied 
that  the  opposition  to  these  national  undertakings  had 
lost  its  ferocity,  and  Socialist  votes  in  committee  repeat- 
edly brought  about  modifications  in  military  and  naval 
bills. 

When  finally  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  national 
danger  in  May  191 3  the  Social  Democrats  accepted  the 
national  Defense  Bill,  which  in  its  system  of  direct  prop- 
erty taxation  coincided  with  their  theories,  it  was 
plain  that  a  considerable  breach  had  at  last  been  made 
in  the  doctrinarian  internationalism  of  the  party  and 
that  it  had  at  last  begun  to  catch  the  national  spirit. 
That  this  was  true  found  complete  confirmation  at  the 
outbreak  of  the  war,  when  disappointment  came  to 
those  who  had  counted  upon  socialism  as  a  weakness  in 
Germany's  hour  of  trial.  The  Social  Democratic  work- 
man threw  down  his  tools  and  rushed  to  obey  the  order 


1 88    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

of  mobilization  with  the  same  patriotic  enthusiasm  as 
inspired  shopkeeper  and  reserve  officer.  The  party 
leaders,  speaking  through  their  papers,  reaffirmed  the 
faith  of  the  SociaUsts  in  the  ideals  of  peace  and  inter- 
national brotherhood  among  workers,  but  put  the  de- 
fense of  German  culture  from  Russian  barbarism  as  a 
first  hfe- consideration ;  and  the  SociaUst  members  of 
the  Reichstag  followed  the  direction  of  the  party  councils 
in  voting  with  practical  unanimity  for  the  government 
war  measures.  The  same  hall  which  had  resounded  so 
often  with  attacks  on  the  spirit  of  mihtarism,  and  Prus- 
sian militarism  in  particular,  now  heard  from  the  Social 
Democratic  leaders  words  of  patriotic  devotion  scarcely 
less  ardent  than  those  which  came  from  Conservative 
and  Liberal  benches.  That  there  were  still  elements  of 
dissent  and  that  the  hatred  of  feudalism  and  capitalism 
still  burned  brightly  could  not  be  doubted,  but  for  the 
present  these  were  lost  to  view  in  the  national  enthu- 
siasm which  made  many  Socialist  leaders  answer  the 
first  call  for  volunteers. 

In  South  Germany,  indeed,  even  before  the  "revi- 
sion" crusade  the  SociaHsts  had  become  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  a  national  party.  In  Wiirtemberg, 
Baden  and  Bavaria  they  repeatedly  voted  for  the  bud- 
get, including  the  supplies  for  the  royal  family,  a  pro- 
ceeding which  stirred  the  radical  SociaUsts  to  the 
bitterest  attacks.  In  Baden  in  1906  the  leader  of  the 
party  in  the  Chamber  paid  a  visit  of  respect  to  the  Grand 
Duke  on  the  birth  of  a  prince;  in  the  Grand  Duchy 
of  Hesse  in  1907  the  fraction  voted  an  address  to  the 
sovereign.  In  the  diminutive  principality  of  Schwarz- 
burg-Rudolstadt  the  Socialists  had  in  191 2  a  majority 
of  the  Chamber  and  elected  one  of  their  number  presi- 
dent. In  the  same  year  in  nineteen  states  of  the  em- 
pire one  hundred  and  eighty-eight  Socialist  deputies 
sat  in  the  legislative  chambers.  The  increasing  par- 
ticipation in  government  which  such  a  large  number  of 


THE   PROLETARIAN   IN   POLITICS  i8g 

representatives  must  bring  with  it  on  more  than  one 
occasion  excited  the  Prussian  radicals  to  the  boiling 
point  and  more  than  one  national  party  convention  re- 
sounded with  wild  scenes  of  disorder  over  the  struggle 
as  to  how  far  a  Social  Democrat  might  participate  in 
government.  Under  the  sting  of  the  radical  lash  the 
South  German  delegates  revolted  at  the  Nuremberg 
Convention  of  1908  and  announced  their  intention  of 
proceeding  independently  of  the  party  in  state  affairs, 
submitting  themselves  to  the  national  convention  only 
in  matters  of  national  issue. 

That  the  process  of  Mauserung  of  the  Social  Demo- 
crats, that  is,  a  gradual  conversion  to  the  practical 
coworking  with  other  Hberal  groups,  did  not  go  further 
and  faster  was  chiefly  due  to  conditions  in  Prussia.  It 
is  not  an  accident  that  most  of  the  radicals  among  the 
Social  Democratic  leaders  have  been  Prussians  and  that 
the  worship  of  an  idea  among  the  serried  thousands  of 
followers  has  gone  further  and  the  collisions  between 
the  proletarian  and  propertied  classes  have  been  more 
numerous  in  Prussia  than  elsewhere  in  the  -empire.  It 
is  true  that  the  Prussian,  whether  capitalist  or  proleta- 
rian, has  a  real  gift  for  discipline,  whether  it  be  the 
discipline  of  the  drill  sergeant,  of  the  manufacturers' 
association,  or  the  Social  Democratic  party  leader.  But 
the  existence  of  a  sharp  and  obdurate  class  feeling  in 
Prussia  is  to  be  explained  most  of  all  by  the  constitution 
of  the  kingdom.  Under  the  provisions  of  this  consti- 
tution, as  we  have  seen,  a  property  quahlication  for  the 
vote  exists,  and  the  working  classes  are  almost  entirely 
excluded  from  participation  in  government,  whether  it 
be  the  government  of  parish,  province  or  kingdom.  Of 
the  three  classes  (cf .  page  143)  which  by  indirect  means 
choose  the  representatives  in  local  and  municipal  coun- 
cil, in  provincial  assembly  and  national  Landtag,  the 
first  class  has  included  in  the  elections  since  1903  from 
three  to  five  per  cent  of  the  total  vote,  the  second  class 


190    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

from  ten  to  fourteen  per  cent,  the  third  class  from  eighty- 
one  to  eighty-seven  per  cent.  Since  the  Socialists  from 
the  nature  of  things  fall  almost  entirely  in  the  third  class, 
it  will  be  seen  what  a  small  chance  they  have  of  secur- 
ing adequate  representation  in  any  elective  body.  The 
industrial  workers  are  placed  at  a  further  disadvantage 
in  elections  to  the  Landtag  by  a  system  of  electoral  dis- 
tricts which  has  remained,  with  minor  alterations,  that 
of  sixty  years  ago.  Thus  while  in  the  agrarian  dis- 
tricts of  East  Prussia  in  1908,  63,000  persons  elected  a 
deputy,  in  Berlin  the  average  was  one  deputy  to  170,000. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  the  Conservative  agrarians, 
who  are  most  bitterly  opposed  to  the  interests  of  the 
industrial  workers,  have  a  far  greater  number  of  seats 
than  their  vote  entitles  them  to.  In  1903  the  Conserva- 
tives, polling  19.4  per  cent  of  the  vote,  elected  33  per 
cent  of  the  deputies  in  the  Landtag. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  when  in  1908  for  the 
first  time  Social  Democrats,  seven  in  number,  found  their 
way  into  the  lower  house  of  the  Prussian  parliament, 
they  were  received  with  scant  courtesy.  The  Con- 
servative Kreuzzeitung  protested  against  their  being 
assigned  to  any  committees,  and  in  fact  something  very 
like  a  boycott  was  exercised  against  them.  The  elec- 
tion of  1 91 3  brought  only  a  slight  increase  in  numbers ; 
but  the  Socialist  deputies  made  up  in  noise  what  they 
lacked  in  voting  strength,  and  in  spite  of  the  iron  rod 
of  Conservative  presiding  ofi&cers,  they  made  them- 
selves as  obnoxious  as  ever  did  the  Irish  Nationalists 
at  Westminster  in  the  palmy  days  of  Parnell  and  Healy. 
Thus  in  the  spring  of  191 2  a  scandalous  scene  was 
precipitated  on  the  floor  of  the  Landtag,  during  which 
the  presiding  officer  was  obliged  to  send  for  the  police. 
The  minions  of  the  law  forcibly  removed  a  refractory 
Herr  Borchardt  and  played  hide-and-seek  a  while  with 
him  in  the  corridors,  a  comical  scene  which  found  its  epi- 
logue in  the  law  courts,  where  the  liberties  of  the  house 


THE  PROLETARIAN  IN  POLITICS  191 

were  finally  vindicated  by  Herr  Borchardt  paying  a 
small  fine.  During  the  same  session  a  Socialist  was 
called  to  order  for  saying  that  "war  is  a  mockery  against 
God''  on  the  ground  that  this  was  "an  insult  to  the 
memory  of  Emperor  William  the  Great,  who  waged 
three  wars,  and  to  the  chivalrous  and  patriotic  spirit 
of  the  German  people."  The  Socialist  members  are 
obliged  to  hear  from  the  ministerial  benches  that  the 
government  regards  all  Socialists  as  enemies  of  God  and 
Fatherland,  and  that  any  official,  civil  or  military,  breaks 
his  oath  to  the  sovereign  when  he  affiliates  himself  in 
any  way  with  the  anti-monarchical  party. 

It  was  the  same  bitter  impatience  against  the  Prus- 
sian constitution  that  accounted  for  many  of  the  violent 
outbreaks  of  representatives  of  the  fourth  estate  in  the 
Reichstag.  Here,  backed  by  crowded  benches  of  applaud- 
ing colleagues,  the  fiery  champions  of  the  proletariat 
have  reaped  a  harvest  of  calls  to  order  in  every  session 
for  their  attacks  on  the  sovereign,  the  ministry,  the 
army,  the  Prussian  constitution  and  the  entire  Prussian 
system.  Some  of  the  party  manifestations  have  been 
even  less  excusable,  and  their  childishness  can  only  be 
explained  by  political  immaturity  or  demagogery  run 
mad,  as  the  habit  which  the  Socialist  members  have 
had  of  leaving  the  hall  of  parhament  when  the  obligate 
Hoch  !  is  given  in  honor  of  the  Kaiser  at  the  close  of 
the  session.  When  with  the  Liberal-Radical-Socialist 
victory  of  191 2  the  Clerical  party  was  obliged  to  re- 
sign to  Radical  hands  the  presidency  of  the  Reichs- 
tag, attacks  on  the  Emperor  himself  became  less  re- 
strained than  ever.  Each  public  speech  of  the  monarch 
found  its  echo  in  some  choice  epigram  from  the  Sociahst 
benches.  Thus  in  the  debate  on  the  Kaiser's  threat 
against  the  constitution  of  Alsace-Lorraine  the  printer 
Scheidemann,  erstwhile  president  of  the  assembly, 
aroused  an  uproar  by  characterizing  the  Emperor  as  a 
"crowned   dilettante,"   and  the  intellectual  free  lance 


192     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Ledebour  earned  a  call  to  order  by  declaring  that  if 
the  king  of  England  had  spoken  as  Kaiser  Wilhelm  did, 
he  would  be  straightway  shut  up  in  Balmoral,  Kke  the 
crazy  king  of  Bavaria  or  Abdul  Hamid  of  Turkey,  It 
was  not  merely  by  their  attacks  on  the  monarch  and  by 
their  unceasing  diatribes  against  army  and  bureaucracy 
that  Social  Democratic  editors  and  orators  won  applause 
in  tavern  and  workshop  or  wherever  their  eager  constit- 
uents gathered  to  read  the  party  press.  Were  a  stupid 
recruit  in  Jiiterbog  or  Gumbinnen  overdrilled  by  a 
zealous  sergeant  until  he  fell  from  exhaustion,  then  one 
might  be  certain  that  the  case  would  be  illuminated 
down  to  its  furthest  cranny  in  the  next  issue  of  Vor- 
wdrts  or  by  a  vitriol-tongued  Liebknecht  or  Ledebour  in 
the  Reichstag.  Did  a  Conservative  government  official 
in  some  remote  Silesian  district  snort  at  Social  Demo- 
cratic voters  at  a  bye-election,  the  party  press  and  the 
Reichstag  hall  would  ring  with  denunciation.  Every 
case  of  judicial  error  had  a  merciless  searchlight  turned 
upon  it,  every  instance  of  official  discrimination  against 
those  suspected  of  being  Sociahsts  became  the  theme  for 
attacks  in  which  coarseness  and  brutaHty  of  language 
often  crossed  the  limits  prescribed  by  the  German  libel 
law.  Whatever  poHtical  errors  may  be  charged  to  the 
Socialists,  the  weakness  of  turning  the  other  cheek  to 
the  smiter  is  something  of  which  the  party's  represent- 
atives cannot  be  accused.  While  one  must  credit  Social 
Democratic  representatives  in  press  and  parliament 
with  sincerity  of  motive  in  the  defense  of  the  poHti- 
cally  and  socially  weak  and  defenseless,  it  cannot  be 
overlooked  that  it  is  mainly  due  to  them  that  a  spirit 
of  undisciplined  coarseness  and  vituperation  has  found 
its  way  into  German  public  Hfe. 

There  is  no  denying  that  they  have  had  provocation 
enough.  The  government  from  the  sovereign  down  has 
always  made  no  secret  of  its  determination  to  fight 
the  Socialists  as  a  foreign  enemy  in  the  Fatherland.    As 


THE  PROLETARIAN  IN  POLITICS  193 

believers  in  ''internationalism"  and  enemies  of  the 
existing  state,  they  have  been  as  a  matter  of  course 
inehgible  to  any  office  in  the  government,  whether  in 
the  army,  navy  or  in  the  civil  service,  although  they 
represent  more  than  one-third  of  the  voting  strength  of 
the  nation.  At  the  elections  all  government  officials 
have  been  expected  to  exert  every  legitimate  influence 
against  the  Social  Democratic  candidate.  Recruits 
who  attended  Socialist  gatherings  or  frequented  taverns 
known  to  be  Socialist  rendezvous  were  liable  to  severe 
punishment.  Especially  in  Prussia,  although  the  basic 
ideas  of  socialism  had  for  years  been  freely  taught  in  the 
universities,  any  teacher  in  an  elementary  school  who 
was  suspected  of  SociaHst  sympathies  exposed  himself 
to  loss  of  promotion  or  might  even  be  removed  from  the 
service.  The  same  fate  awaited  any  postal  or  customs 
employee  who  identified  himself  in  any  way  with  the 
Socialist  cause ;  and  it  has  often  been  charged  by  the 
Socialists  and  never  disproved  that  the  workmen  on  pub- 
lic works  have  been  practically  forced  to  enroll  their 
children  in  clubs  where  a  sort  of  "hurra-patriotism" 
was  taught  and  where  the  youngsters  were  trained  to 
regard  the  Social  Democrats  as  the  most  dangerous 
enemies  of  God  and  native  land.  Naturally  a  state  of 
affairs  like  this  leads  to  deceit,  to  cringing,  tale-bearing 
and  denunciation.  Unfortunately  also,  while  the  Ger- 
man courts  are  usually  models  of  fairness  and  inaccessible 
to  political,  social  or  financial  influences,  the  Social 
Democrat  has  not  always  had  an  impartial  hearing. 
The  Jena  students  demonstrated  against  the  SociaHst 
convention  held  in  that  little  Athens  on  the  Saale  in 
191 1,  and  the  Weimar  Volkszeitung  was  fined  for  calling 
one  of  the  student  leaders  a  Mistfink,  a  somewhat  in- 
tensified equivalent  of  "mucker."  A  laborer  in  the 
Kiel  district  in  191 2  gave  his  daughter  the  euphonious 
name  of  Lassalline.  When  the  registrar  refused  to 
record  a  name  so  full  of  danger  to  the  fatherland,  the 


194    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

magistrate's  court  finally  ordered  him  to  do  so,  but 
attached  to  this  confirmation  of  the  parent's  right  to 
denominate  his  offspring  a  long  oration  against  so- 
cialism. 

The  Socialist  workman  replied  to  this  boycott  by 
exercising  in  his  way  a  terrorism  which  the  govern- 
ment, aided  by  all  the  conservative  forces  in  the  state, 
has  striven  in  vain  to  suppress.  He  has  vented  on  the 
non-socialist  worker  his  dissatisfaction  with  the  govern- 
ment, and,  as  might  be  expected,  often  with  brutaUty 
and  violence.  That  during  a  political  strike,  such  as 
the  coal  strike  in  the  Ruhr  district  in  191 2  (cf.  page  167), 
the  CathoHc  labor  unions  should  suffer  bloody  attacks 
from  the  striking  miners  is  not  surprising :  even  the 
non-political  Hirsch-Duncker  unionists  have  more  than 
one  tale  to  tell  of  similar  mistreatment  during  labor 
troubles.  But  it  is  not  merely  the  strike  breakers  in 
strike  times  who  have  suffered.  Every  non-Socialist 
brick  mason  or  carpenter  must  look  for  a  continuous  haz- 
ing. If  he  were  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  obliged  to  work 
with  a  Socialist  unionist,  he  might  consider  himself  lucky 
if  he  got  off  with  the  occasional  loss  of  tools  or  dinner 
bucket  or  an  accidental  fall  into  a  horse-pond  and  did  not 
have  his  hand  permanently  maimed  by  the  slip  of  a 
chisel  or  his  head  cracked  by  the  premature  topple  of 
a  hod  of  bricks.  Against  such  petty  cases  of  tyranny 
of  course  both  government  and  employer  have  been 
helpless.  In  past  years  the  government  has  eagerly 
sought  from  the  Reichstag  sharper  weapons  for  the  sup- 
pression of  strike  violence  and  the  protection  of  strike 
breakers;  but  in  spite  of  the  personal  influence  of  the 
Emperor  in  their  favor,  no  one  of  these  special  measures 
for  the  protection  of  the  workers  has  been  able  to  find  a 
majority  in  parliament.  The  fear  that  they  might  be 
used  as  a  weapon  for  further  strengthening  the  great 
industrialists  has  always  frightened  off  enough  Clericals 
to  cause  their  defeat. 


THE   PROLETARIAN  IN   POLITICS  195 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  feeling  against  the 
Socialists  has  been  confined  to  feudal  squires  and  factory 
owners.  It  pervades  the  entire  middle  class  in  Germany, 
for  except  the  extreme  Radicals,  all  Germans,  whether 
they  thrive  by  land,  trade  or  manufacture,  have  been 
taught  to  regard  the  Social  Democrat  as  an  enemy  of 
the  Fatherland.  The  Rhenish  shopkeeper,  the  Black 
Forest  clockmaker,  the  Pomeranian  peasant  farmer,  — 
all  have  shuddered  alike  at  the  growing  power  and  in- 
fluence of  the  Social  Democracy  and  regarded  almost 
any  means  as  holy  that  would  tend  to  defeat  its  ultimate 
success.  It  was  only  when  the  excessive  demands  of 
agrarian  and  clerical  interests  aroused  the  alarm  of 
those  who  live  by  commerce  and  industry  that  these 
classes  considered  the  possibility  of  a  league,  and  the 
coworking  of  Radicals  and  Social  Democrats  at  the 
polls  in  191 2  broke  ground  in  that  direction.  The  So- 
cialist leaders,  however,  have  been  well  aware  that 
any  modification  of  their  extreme  radical  attitude  tow- 
ard the  middle  classes  would  not  only  endanger  their 
hold  on  the  working  class,  with  its  sharp  class  feeling, 
but  that  a  large  number  of  the  discontented  from  all 
classes  would  fall  away  from  them.  For  the  growth  of 
socialism's  vote  in  Germany  has  been  due  by  no  means 
merely  to  the  rising  demands  of  the  industrial  workers. 
It  has  been  distinctly  the  party  of  discontent  and  pro- 
test. Every  discontented  and  disappointed  man  is 
liable  at  any  time  to  express  his  dissatisfaction  with 
society  in  general  by  voting  the  Social  Democratic 
ticket.  Has  the  young  medical  student  failed  of  an 
appointment,  has  the  citizen  soldier  been  given  a  verbal 
castigation  by  the  officer  during  his  drill  with  the  re- 
serve, has  a  postal  clerk  been  docked  in  his  pay,  has  the 
grocer's  wife  had  a  snub  from  the  factory  owner's,  — 
each  sufferer  can  give  vent  to  his  private  grievance 
against  society  by  voting  for  the  Social  Democrat  and 
thus  making  trouble  for  the  powers  that  be.     None  of 


196    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

these  persons  has  the  slightest  sympathy  with  the 
ultimate  socialist  program,  and  none  of  them  would 
think  of  overthrowing  the  present  state  of  society, 
except  in  a  moment  of  ill  humor.  This  habit  of  "voting 
to  the  Left"  has  attacked  large  classes  of  democratically 
inclined  persons  of  the  lower  middle  class  following  such 
a  period  of  reaction  as  that  which  ended  with  the  elec- 
tion of  the  Reichstag  of  191 2. 

It  is  indeed  unfortunate  that  this  is  so,  and  the  lovers 
of  Germany  have  often  asked  themselves  what  the  end 
would  be,  if  so  strangely  constituted  a  party  continued 
to  grow  in  voting  strength.  Largely  through  its  own 
choice  the  Social  Democracy,  although  representing  one- 
third  of  the  voters  in  the  empire,  has  been  deprived  of 
any  considerable  share  in  government  and  remained 
in  an  attitude  of  sullen  hostility  to  the  state.  So  well 
have  the  class  organizers  of  past  decades  done  their 
work  that  they  have  developed  among  the  industrial 
workers  who  make  up  the  Social  Democratic  party  a 
class  feeling  that  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  an  in- 
dependent class  culture.  It  is  not  merety  a  political 
gulf  which  the  Socialist  leaders  have  fixed  between  the 
workman  and  every  other  class  in  Germany.  Through 
constant  teaching  in  young  men's  clubs,  trade  unions 
and  political  societies  the  industrial  worker  has  become 
to  a  certain  extent  a  different  creature  from  his  middle 
class  neighbor,  a  member  of  a  nation  within  the  German 
nation.  A  striking  characteristic  of  the  German  the 
world  over  is  the  love  of  Fatherland.  The  Socialist 
workman  has  claimed  to  be  an  international  and  to 
feel  as  one,  and  in  program  at  least  he  has  professed  to 
be  more  strongly  drawn  to  his  fellow  proletarian  in 
France  and  England  than  to  the  shopkeepers  and  peas- 
ant proprietors  of  his  native  district.  The  North  Ger- 
man is  by  tradition  strongly  monarchical ;  the  Social- 
ist frankly  detests  monarchy  and  monarch.  While 
the  German,  north  and  south,  may  not  approve  of  all 


THE  PROLETARIAN  IN  POLITICS  197 

the  methods  of  the  Evangelical  and  Roman  Catholic 
churches,  he  is  held  by  mighty  roots  to  a  deep  religios- 
ity; the  Socialist  claims  to  regard  religion  as  a  private 
matter,  nevertheless  he  cannot  forget  that  the  church 
has  been  the  handmaid  of  reaction  and  oppression,  and 
the  attitude  of  intellectual  leader  and  proletarian 
follower  is  frankly  and  openly  anti-religious.  Many  of 
the  most  brilliant  Social  Democratic  leaders  with  tongue 
and  pen  are  Jews,  it  need  hardly  be  said,  unorthodox 
Jews,  who  have  cut  loose  entirely  from  the  religion  of 
Moses  and  the  prophets.  Anyone  who  is  at  all  familiar 
with  the  anti-Semitic  feeHng  among  the  upper  and 
middle  classes  in  Germany  can  understand  how  much 
the  prejudice  against  the  Socialists  is  deepened  by  this 
Jewish  alliance.  Furthermore,  in  spite  of  the  case- 
hardening  of  the  modem  struggle  for  existence,  the 
average  German  has  remained  a  romanticist,  full  of 
hero-worship  and  with  a  deep  enthusiasm  for  the  poetry 
of  the  nation's  past;  the  Social  Democrat  has  been 
taught  to  view  the  past  under  the  hard  light  of  Marx' 
theory  as  a  battle-ground  of  economic  forces,  where 
without  mercy  the  strong  has  preyed  upon  the  weak. 
When  the  war  came  the  attitude  of  the  Social 
Democracy  toward  it  showed  at  once  that  much  of  the 
so-called  " interna tionahsm "  of  the  German  industrial 
worker  is  purely  academic.  All  the  doctrinarianism  of 
the  tavern  benches  and  the  nobler  enthusiasm  of  such 
demonstrations  as  that  of  Treptow  could  not  affect 
the  age-old  roots  which  bind  him  to  the  Fatherland. 
It  is  improbable  that  the  Socialists,  were  they  to  com- 
mand a  majority  in  Germany's  parliament  and  so 
succeed  in  changing  Germany's  constitution  as  to  have 
a  free  hand  in  legislation,  would  do  anything  to  weaken 
the  nation's  defenses,  either  by  a  change  in  the  military 
system  or  a  destruction  of  protective  duties.  It  seemed, 
indeed,  as  if  even  old-Hne  leaders,  like  the  late  August 
Bebel,   had   caught  something  of   the   enthusiasm   for 


198    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Germany's  world-empire.  After  the  so-called  "Hotten- 
tot election"  of  1907,  when  Socialists  and  Clericals  alike 
suffered  severely  at  the  hands  of  the  voters  for  their 
opposition  to  colonial  expansion,  there  began  to  show 
itself  in  the  Social  Democratic  press  a  tendency  toward 
increasing  patriotic  expression  with  regard  to  the  national 
honor  and  defenses.  Here  again  South  Germany  led 
the  way,  for  here  the  ** revisionists"  were  stronger. 
Among  the  first  prominent  men  to  fall  in  the  invasion  of 
France  in  August  1914  was  Dr.  Frank  of  Mannheim, 
a  widely  known  Social  Democratic  leader ;  and  indeed 
the  blood  of  Socialist  patriots  has  reddened  every  battle- 
field where  German  armies  have  fought.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  attitude  of  the  party  towards  the 
nation's  inner  hfe  cannot  fail  to  undergo  a  change. 

In  later  years  indeed  the  Social  Democrats  had  already 
accompHshed  much  that  was  positive.  By  their  con- 
stant and  searching  criticisms  they  held  a  searchhght 
constantly  fijted  on  the  weak  spots  and  the  sore  spots 
in  the  courts  and  the  army.  In  the  field  of  social 
legislation,  such  as  the  extension  of  compulsory  insur- 
ance, the  fixing  of  a  shorter  working  day,  and  the  pro- 
tection of  women  and  children  in  the  industries,  they 
kept  high  ideals  before  the  country.  In  their  work  for 
universal  peace,  in  their  opposition  to  immoderate 
military  expenditures  and  to  duels  and  other  manifes- 
tations of  the  feudal  spirit  in  the  army,  they  offered  a 
valuable  counterbalance  to  the  miUtarism-run-mad 
spirit.  In  their  pleas  for  a  judiciary  free  from  influence 
of  every  kind,  schools  free  from  religious  bigotry,  for  a 
system  of  taxation  which  should  fall  directly  upon  the 
propertied  classes,  for  a  strong  central  control  of  great 
industries  and  for  woman's  suffrage,  they  accomplished 
much  toward  the  inner  upbuilding  of  the  state.  These 
afi&rmative  poUcies  have  been  pushed  by  a  class  of  leaders 
who  are  very  different  from  those  who  led  che  serried 
thousands  of  the  fourth  estate  in  the  nineties  or  even  at  the 


THE   PROLETARIAN   IN   POLITICS  199 

beginning  of  the  present  century.  The  really  advanced 
men  in  the  Social  Democratic  party  are  no  longer  the 
narrow  Marxian  enthusiasts  or  class  fanatics  who  grew  up 
under  the  anti-socialist  laws  or  when  the  party  was  still 
in  the  fledghng  period  of  political  strategy.  They  are 
often  men  of  the  highest  university  training,  occasionally 
with  inherited  wealth  and  culture,  who  know  the  his- 
tory of  the  party  and  are  filled  with  the  optimism  of 
success.  They  have  shown  an  increasing  power  to 
lead  the  party  farther  away  from  a  sterile  doctrinarianism 
toward  a  really  practical  democracy. 


CHAPTER  X 

The  Church  in  Politics 

One  of  the  most  difi&cult  things  for  the  American  to 
understand  is  the  religious  hatred  which  seems  inborn  in 
many  Germans.  Other  lands  have  their  bigots  who  are 
only  too  willing  to  become  persecutors :  in  southeastern 
Europe  religious  hatred,  complicated  with  racial  antag- 
onism, often  breaks  out  into  blood-red  conflagration. 
But  in  Spain  church  claims  were  spared  the  full  shock 
of  the  age  of  enlightenment,  and  the  confessional  fury 
of  Russia  and  the  Balkans  rests  largely  on  racial  hatred. 
In  Germany  one  wonders  to  find  a  people,  fully  en- 
lightened and  leading  the  world  in  modern  culture, 
divided  by  religious  bitterness,  centuries  old,  deep 
seated  and  ever  ready  for  expression.  With  all  of  his 
indifferentism  towards  personal  religion,  the  cultured 
German  of  to-day  still  wears  the  earmarks  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  in  his  attitude  toward  those  who  were 
born  into  another  religious  faith.  The  confessional 
struggles  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
left  a  bitter  heritage  to  the  twentieth.  The  present 
German  empire  is  nearly  two-thirds  Protestant  and  one- 
third  Roman  Catholic ;  and  since  religious  prejudice, 
like  racial  antagonism,  rests  on  mutual  ignorance,  it  is 
very  unfortunate  that  confessional  differences  follow  to 
a  certain  extent  provincial  boundaries,  and  that  while 
the  northern  and  eastern  provinces  of  Prussia,  the 
kingdom  of  Saxony  and  the  Thuringian  duchies  are 
overwhelmingly  Lutheran,  Bavaria,  the  Rhine  country 
and  a  part  of  the  Southwest  is  largely  Catholic.  Thus 
religious  differences  have  been  strengthened  by  local 


THE   CHURCH  IN  POLITICS  201 

antagonism  and  have  given  rise  to  problems  very  difficult 
of  solution. 

The  fact  that  the  Roman  Catholic  church  is  in  a 
minority  in  the  German  empire  explains  in  the  first 
instance  its  presence  as  a  pohtical  force.  Ask  the 
Roman  Catholic  supporter  of  the  Clerical  party  why  the 
church  is  in  politics  and  he  will  answer  with  the  oft- 
quoted  plank  in  the  Centre  platform:  "To  represent 
the  interests  of  the  Cathohc  Church  in  national  life." 
He  realizes  that  there  is  in  Prussia  and  in  the  empire  a 
two-thirds  majority  opposed  to  claims  which  the  church 
has  grown  to  regard  as  just,  and  he  believes  it  his  duty 
to  stand  always  on  guard  in  defense  of  these  claims. 
The  average  voter  of  the  Lutheran  or  Reformed  faith, 
on  the  other  hand,  regards  the  Centre  party  as  an  enemy 
of  the  state,  ready  at  any  moment  to  obey  the  orders  of 
foreign  diplomats,  who  have  interfered  in  the  name  of 
religion  so  often  and  with  such  disastrous  results  in 
Germany's  interior  poHtics.  He  feels  that  the  very 
existence  of  an  orderly  and  well-disciplined  phalanx  of 
Roman  Catholic  voters  smells  of  Jesuit  intrigue  and  the 
blood  and  flames  of  earlier  centuries.  And  if  he  is  re- 
minded that  the  German  Clerical  is  as  full  of  patriotism 
and  as  ready  to  make  sacrifices  for  the  empire  as  his 
evangelical  fellow-patriot,  he  points  to  Belgium  as  a 
modern  and  enlightened  state  where  all  the  evils  of 
clerical  control  have  been  manifest. 

Religious  strife  and  prejudice  find  their  excuse  in 
history,  and  one  cannot  understand  the  organization 
and  spirit  of  the  Centre  party  in  Germany  without  at 
least  a  glance  at  its  origin.  This  is  not  the  place  to  do 
more  than  recall  the  romantic  reaction  which  followed  on 
the  dogma-smashing  days  of  the  age  of  enlightenment, 
a  reaction  out  of  which  the  Roman  Catholic  church  in 
Germany  gradually  arose  as  a  modern  and  essentially 
democratic  institution.  The  church  had  felt  the  throb 
of  a  vigorous  political  power  even  before  the  revolution 


202     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

of  1848,  and  the  events  of  that  year  placed  the  leaders 
of  the  Catholic  masses  in  a  singularly  advantageous 
position.  They  could  appeal  to  the  liberal  ideals  of 
complete  religious  freedom,  and  at  the  same  time  they 
were  courted  by  the  various  governments,  who  recognized 
in  the  church  a  stable  and  conservative  force.  Catholic 
societies  with  hundreds  of  thousands  of  members  grew 
apace  and  thrust  out  their  fingers  into  every  parish  in 
German  lands,  knitting  anew  the  old  bonds  which  bound 
parish  clergy  and  laity  to  Rome.  Long  before  Bismarck 
had  ridden  victorious  Prussia  to  the  head  of  the  new 
empire,  the  Catholic  masses  were  organized  and  ready 
for  use  as  a  political  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  demo- 
cratic lower  clergy  under  the  influence  of  the  wide-eyed 
diplomacy  of  the  Roman  curia. 

This  solidified  spirit  of  the  Catholic  masses,  ready  to 
do  and  sacrifice  in  defense  of  a  reinvigorated  faith,  had 
already  drawn  first  blood  in  its  contests  with  the  govern- 
ments of  various  Protestant  states  before  it  was  seized 
and  forged  into  a  pohtical  weapon  by  Ludwig  Windt- 
horst.  This  North  German  aristocrat  had  been  a  Han- 
overian minister  before  1866  :  he  resented  the  incor- 
poration of  Hanover  into  Prussia  and  hated  Bismarck 
with  a  Guelphic  intensity  which  would  have  done  credit 
to  fourteenth  century  Florence.  In  1870  this  irreconcil- 
able, whose  devious  diplomacy  and  clever  opportunism 
set  their  stamp  upon  the  Centre  party  for  all  lime,  met 
with  Bavarian  Catholic  leaders  and  laid  plans  for  the 
representation  of  Catholic  interests  in  parliament,  and 
in  the  following  year  their  successful  candidates  made 
their  entry  into  the  Prussian  Landtag  with  48  members 
and  into  the  national  Reichstag  with  67. 

These  deputies  chose  their  seats  in  the  centre  of  the 
house,  hence  the  designation  "Centre"  for  the  Clerical 
or  Roman  CathoHc  party  in  all  German  parliaments,  a 
designation  which  marks  also  to  a  certain  extent  the 
opportunist  policy  of  the  fraction  wherever  found. 


THE   CHURCH  IN  POLITICS  203 

The  first  hallmark  of  the  party  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
particularistic  and  anti-national :  one  might  perhaps  say, 
anti-Prussian.  The  chief  opposition  in  South  Germany 
to  the  solidification  and  expansion  of  the  North  German 
Confederation  into  an  empire  came  from  the  Catholic 
leaders  of  Bavaria,  Wiirtemberg  and  Baden,  who  saw 
in  the  hegemony  of  Prussia  a  menace  to  the  Catholic 
faith.  Undoubtedly  they  found  backing  in  Roman  diplo- 
macy, and  their  fears  were  to  some  extent  justifiable. 
Prussia,  a  predominantly  Protestant  state,  had  humbled 
the  Austrian  house,  the  faithful  patron  of  the  church, 
and  had  thrust  His  Apostolic  Majesty  out  from  all 
participation  in  Germany's  afTairs.  It  had  leagued 
itself  with  Victor  Emmanuel,  the  arch-enemy  of  Pius 
IX,  had  crushed  France,  at  that  time  the  champion  of 
the  church  in  its  efforts  to  maintain  its  temporal  power 
in  Italy,  and  had  thus  been  the  indirect  cause  of  the  fall 
of  the  Papal  State  before  the  arms  of  united  Italy. 
It  had  set  up  in  the  centre  of  Europe  a  powerful  empire 
62.3  per  cent  Protestant.  There  was  also  another 
reason  why  the  diplomats  of  the  curia  could  not  but  look 
with  favor  upon  the  mobilization  of  German  Catholics 
for  a  specific  program.  The  promulgation  of  the  dogma 
of  the  immaculate  conception  in  1854  and  that  of  papal 
infallibility  in  1870  had  called  forth  great  opposition 
among  the  faithful  in  Germany,  the  classic  land  of  in- 
dividuality of  thought,  and  finally  resulted  in  a  seces- 
sion. The  seceders,  "Old  Catholics,"  never  became  im- 
portant numerically,  but  they  included  among  them 
some  of  the  most  learned  theologians  and  scientists  in 
Roman  Catholic  universities,  and  the  movement  sent  a 
shock  through  the  entire  church,  the  results  of  which 
could  not  at  first  be  determined.  No  wonder  then  that 
the  Roman  diplomats  should  have  welcomed  the  panacea 
of  war  against  the  heretic  as  a  cure  for  what  seemed  to 
be  impending  rebellion. 

The  particularistic  and  ultramontane  element,  which 


204    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

saw  its  interests  threatened  by  the  foundation  of  new 
Germany,  was  soon  solidified  by  the  fire  of  battle.  Bis- 
marck, who  regarded  the  Centre  party  as  a  mobilization 
against  the  state,  proceeded  at  once  to  make  war.  There 
is  no  space  here  to  give  in  detail  the  history  of  the 
struggle  between  Bismarck  and  the  Catholic  party,  the 
struggle  to  which  Rudolph  Virchow  gave  the  striking 
name  of  KuUurkampf.  It  began  with  the  genesis  of 
the  empire  and  found  the  conclusion  of  its  first  and 
bitterest  period  with  the  death  of  Pius  DC  and  the  rise 
of  peremptory  economic  questions,  which  called  off 
both  antagonists.  Its  field  was  particularly  Prussia, 
although  Bavaria  and  Baden  also  shared  in  it,  and.,  the 
empire  was  likewise  drawn  in.  It  centred  about,  the 
control  of  marriage,  of  the  schools  and  the  education 
of  the  clergy.  It  is  now  an  idle  question  as  to  whether 
Bismarck  really  carried  through  his  program  or  whether 
he  was  obliged  to  swallow  the  boast  he  made  at  the 
beginning  of  the  struggle  and,  like  Henry  IV,  another 
proud  spirit  foiled  by  the  passive  violence  of  the  church, 
"go  to  Canossa."  German  Catholicism  is  far  too  virile, 
Germans,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  far  too  romantically 
attached  to  tradition,  to  make  it  possible  to  accomplish 
in  the  Fatherland  what  Combes  and  the  radict.l-social- 
ist  cabinet  did  in  France  thirty  years  later.  The 
KuUurkampf  ended  in  a  compromise,  because  Bismarck 
saw  that  to  prolong  the  conflict  would  irretrievably 
weaken  the  state,  not  merely  in  its  attitude  toward 
foreign  foes,  but  also  in  its  ability  to  deal  with  economic 
questions  and  meet  the  rising  socialist  danger.  As  a 
result  of  long  negotiations  with  Leo  XIII,  which  found 
their  conclusion  in  1887,  the  state  retained  control  over 
marriage  and  the  schools,  leaving  the  church  free  to 
educate  its  clergy  and  govern  its  priests  in  its  own 
way. 

But  the  Centre  party  had  been  baptized  with  fire  and 
emerged  from  the  conflict  flushed  with  the  conscious- 


THE   CHURCH  IN  POLITICS  205 

ness  of  victory.  That  Bismarck  negotiated  a  truce  and 
peace  with  the  curia  and  not  with  the  leaders  of  the 
CathoHc  party  in  Germany,  these  leaders  repaid  with 
a  bitter  hostility  to  his  policies  which  continued  long 
after  peace  with  the  church  had  finally  been  made.  They 
fought  tooth  and  nail  against  the  Septennat,  a  bill  pro- 
viding miUtary  supplies  for  seven  years,  in  1887,  long^- 
after  the  Pope  had  counselled  surrender;  and  they^ 
consistently  presented  a  solid  front  against  anti- 
Polish  and  other  national  poUcies.  With  the  passing 
of  the  Bismarck  era,  however,  a  change  came.  Time 
healed  the  wounds  of  the  KuUurkampJ,  and  William  II 
early  showed  himself  desirous  of  winning  the  affection 
of  his  Roman  CathoHc  subjects.  Points  of  irritation 
were  carefully  removed,  and  such  things  as  the  founding 
of  a  CathoUc  theological  faculty  in  the  Strasburg 
university  and  personal  gifts  of  the  monarch  to  the 
church  like  the  celebrated  Dormitio  MaricB,  presented 
to  the  Catholics  of  Jerusalem  on  the  occasion  of  the 
Emperor's  visit  to  the  holy  city,  showed  a  fair  and 
tactful  consideration  of  the  rights  and  feeHngs  of  more 
than  twenty  milHons  of  German  Catholics.  With  the 
passing  of  Windthorst  and  the  old  leaders  of  the  Centre, 
there  came  also  a  weakening  of  the  particularism  of 
the  party.  The  Centre  no  less  than  the  Radicals  began 
to  catch  the  spirit  of  a  greater  Germany. 

With  this  turning  away  from  narrow  aims  toward  a 
wider  nationaHsm  came  a  change  in  the  attitude  of  the 
Centre  toward  the  government.  While  Bismarck  had 
spoken  of  the  party  as  "a  beleaguering  army  which 
stands  drawn  up  against  the  government  ever  ready  for 
attack,"  the  Iron  Chancellor's  successors,  Caprivi  and 
Hohenlohe,  the  latter  himself  a  CathoUc  of  liberal 
views,  made  alliances  with  the  Clericals.  In  1895  a 
delegate  from  the  Centre  was  chosen  President  of  the 
Reichstag,  and  for  twelve  years  representatives  of  the 
party  presided  over  the  national  parliament.     In  place 


2o6    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

of  the  aristocratic  Windthorst,  the  leadership  fell  to  the 
Kamberg  tea  merchant  Lieber,  and  a  thoroughgoing 
democratization  of  the  party  took  place.  The  struggle 
against  the  Social  Democracy  in  the  industrial  districts 
of  Westphalia  and  Alsace-Lorraine  led  to  the  adoption 
of  a  social  program  and  to  the  organization  of  Catholic 
trade  unions.  In  the  main  the  attitude  of  the  leaders 
remained  as  before,  federative-particularistic,  support- 
ing as  before  the  principle  of  federation  as  opposed  to 
centralization  and  resisting  any  attempt  to  weaken  the 
individual  states  by  granting  wider  powers  to  the  im- 
perial government.  The  party  still  clung  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  church  control  of  education,  but  became  more 
opportunist,  supporting  the  government  so  long  as 
the  government  was  willing  to  make  small  concessions 
to  the  Catholic  constituency,  often  advocating  sound 
liberal  poUcies  when  they  did  not  endanger  the  interests 
of  the  church.  With  the  colonial  crisis  of  1906,  how- 
ever, the  Centre  parted  company  with  the  government. 
The  leaders  had  become  increasingly  peremptory  in  their 
demands  on  Chancellor  Biilow,  and  finally  refused  to 
support  the  government  in  its  colonial  poHcy,  which 
failed  before  the  opposition  of  a  Centre  and  Socialist 
majority.  In  the  elections  which  followed,  the  Clericals, 
by  their  matchless  organization,  escaped  the  severe 
losses  which  the  enthusiasm  for  a  greater  Germany 
overseas  inflicted  on  the  Socialists.  The  party  was 
forced,  however,  into  alliance  with  the  Conservatives, 
whither  its  opposition  to  direct  taxation  and  the  re- 
organization of  the  imperial  finances  had  been  driving 
it,  and  with  this  rise  of  the  so-called  "blue-black" 
block  came,  as  has  been  shown  (cf.  page  130),  a  sort  of 
reaction  in  all  national  affairs,  a  reaction  which  lasted 
until  the  elections  of  191 2.  The  Liberal-Socialist  vic- 
tories of  that  year  brought  to  the  Clerical  party  the  first 
considerable  loss  of  candidates  which  it  had  suffered 
since  its  organization.     Not  merely  in  the  Reichstag, 


THE   CHURCH  IN  POLITICS  207 

but  in  Bavaria,  the  citadel  of  Catholicism,  many  Centre 
candidates  fell  before  Radical  and  Socialist  opponents. 
One  must  be  familiar  with  the  history  of  Clericalismi 
in  Germany  to  understand  the  bitterly  hostile  attitude 
of  many  enlightened  Germans  toward  anything  that 
smacks  of  the  rule  of  the  cassock.  The  old  fear  of 
Roman  influence,  the  old  cry  echoing  since  the  days  of 
Walther  von  der  Vogelweide, 

"  Das  deutsche  Silber  fahrt  in  einen  wdschen  Schrein,  —  "  * 

resounds  still  in  circles  which  are  by  no  means  bigoted. 
It  is  not  merely  the  Centre  as  a  poKtical  party,  sub- 
ordinating all  other  questions  to  those  of  church  interest, 
that  these  patriots  fear.  It  is  not  the  return  of  the 
Jesuits  as  teachers  or  the  extension  of  the  influence  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  church  on  schools  and  bureaucracy. 
\Vhat  they  do  fear  and  resent  with  a  bitterness  which 
has  grown  since  national  unity  and  greatness,  is  the 
control  by  Roman  diplomats  of  German  interior  policies 
through  German  votes.  This  explains  the  bitterness  in 
cultured  circles  over  the  so-called  Motu  proprio  oi  1910, 
by  which  the  curia  demanded  of  every  priest  an  oath 
pledging  him  to  fight  to  the  last  against  all  so-called 
"modem  tendencies,"  which  whether  under  the  name 
of  higher  criticism  or  scientific  discovery  were  felt  to  be 
undermining  Christian  faith.  Under  the  terms  of  the 
papal  decree  all  university  and  gymnasial  teachers,  as 
officers  of  the  state,  were  expressly  excused  from  the 
anti-modernist  oath,  which  thus  became  a  matter  of 
inner  church  policy,  with  which  non-Catholics  had  of 
course  nothing  to  do.  Nevertheless  the  publication  of 
the  Motu  proprio  led  to  bitter  debates  in  the  press  and 
the  Prussian  Landtag,  where  the  matter  was  brought  up 
again  and  again  by  Conserv^ative  and  Radical  orators 
and  discussed  in  the   tone  of  violence  and  unfairness 

^  "Germany's  silver  falls  into  a  foreign  chest,  — " 


2o8    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

which  marks  all  debates  where  religious  questions  are 
thrown  into  the  political  arena. 

The  temper  shown  in  the  discussions  of  the  "anti- 
modernist"  oath,  however,  was  as  nothing  compared 
with  the  bitterness  which  has  been  engendered  by  the 
constantly  recurring  Jesuit  question.  In  1872  at  an 
early  stage  of  the  KuUurkampf  a  rigid  law  was  passed, 
closing  all  Jesuit  institutions,  expelhng  foreign  members 
of  the  Society  and  laying  heavy  restrictions  upon  German 
members.  In  1904  the  restrictions  on  German  citizens 
were  removed,  but  in  spite  of  constant  agitation  on  the 
part  of  the  Centre,  the  Society  is  still  forbidden  within 
the  black-white-red  boundary  posts.  The  result  was 
the  natural  one :  the  Society  became  truly  and  widely 
popular  in  Catholic  circles  and  came  practically  to 
control  the  press  and  church  societies  in  Germany.  At 
every  fresh  recurrence  of  the  question  as  to  whether  the 
Society  shall  be  readmitted,  a  debate  has  broken  out 
which  would  do  credit  to  the  seventeenth  century.  A 
fresh  and  typical  instance  occurred  in  191 2  when  a 
former  member  of  the  Centre  fraction  in  the  Reichstag, 
Freiherr  von  Hertling,  a  professor  of  philosophy  in  the 
university  of  Munich,  came  to  the  head  of  the  Bavarian 
ministry.  His  interpretation  of  the  anti- Jesuit  law  was 
too  liberal  to  suit  non-Catholic  Germany  and  led  to 
bitter  attacks  in  the  press  and  the  Reichstag,  attacks 
which  were  given  back  with  interest  by  the  powerful 
Berlin  Germania,  the  chief  organ  of  the  Centre  party 
and  by  other  less  brilliant  Catholic  journals.  Finally 
the  HertKng  interpretation  was  rejected  by  the  Bundesrat, 
and  the  interdict  rested  on  Jesuit  conferences  and  assem- 
blies as  before.  The  incident  is  of  importance  as  illus- 
trating the  feeling  of  the  non-Catholic  population  of 
Germany  toward  the  powerful  organizations  and  far- 
reaching  diplomacy  of  those  who  hold  the  threads  of 
Roman  Catholic  church  policy. 

Not  always  indeed  has  the  Centre  party  taken  its 


THE   CHURCH  IN  POLITICS  209 

orders  blindly  from  Rome.  In  the  early  days  of  the 
party  it  found  not  a  few  supporters  among  those  who 
considered  Bismarck's  policies  as  too  strongly  unitary 
and  imperial,  and  Windthorst  on  more  than  one  occa- 
sion disregarded  the  advice  of  the  Vatican  or  kept  it 
from  the  knowledge  of  his  followers  in  order  to  carry 
out  his  own  tactics  undisturbed.  Thus  in  1887  the  rank 
and  file  of  the  party  gathered  blindly  behind  their 
leaders  in  opposition  to  the  Septennat,  completely 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  those  leaders  had  been  coun- 
selled by  Pope  Leo  to  yield  to  Bismarck,  between  whom 
and  the  curia  peace  had  just  been  concluded.  And 
again  and  again  German  individualism  and  independence 
have  asserted  themselves  in  the  statements  of  Centrist 
leaders  that  the  infalUbiUty  of  the  Pope  does  not  ex- 
tend to  temporal  affairs  and  that  the  poHtical  tactics  of 
the  Centre  party  take  no  orders  from  Rome.  Neverthe- 
less, the  fact  remains  that  in  recent  years  scarcely  any 
but  Catholics  have  supported  the  Centre  party  and  that 
seven-ninths  of  all  Catholic  voters  stand  behind  it. 
Numberless  Catholic  societies,  international,  national 
and  local,  honeycomb  Germany,  so  that  in  some  parishes 
there  is  hardly  a  male  communicant  who  is  not  artic- 
ulated in  some  way  into  the  half -devotional,  half- 
fraternal  Hfe  of  the  church.  In  this  mobihzation  of 
CathoHc  strength  the  clergy  plays  a  decisive  role,  and 
the  clergy  have  been  the  great  vote-getters  of  the 
Centre  party.  In  spite  of  all  restrictive  legislation 
against  interference  with  the  freedom  of  the  voter, 
every  election  to  the  Reichstag  or  state  parhaments  has 
brought  an  appendix  of  complaints  in  the  Liberal  and 
Socialist  papers  against  clerical  terrorism.  The  Centrist 
delegate  cannot  help  a  feeling  of  dependence  on  this 
powerful  organizer  of  his  constituency,  although  this 
dependence  is  no  longer  brought  home  to  him  so  forcibly 
as  in  the  days  of  the  KulturkampJ ,  when  priests  prayed 
publicly  in  the  church  for  the  conversion  of  a  refractory 


2IO    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE   BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Centre  delegate  who  had  put  the  national  interests  above 
party  call.  The  discipline  of  the  German  clergy  under 
Rome  has  become  well-nigh  perfect  in  the  past  two  dec- 
ades, and  it  will  readily  be  seen  that  the  party  leaders 
must  bring  their  tactics  into  Hne  with  the  ideas  of  the 
hierarchy.  They  have  had  need  for  all  of  the  cleverness 
for  which  the  party  is  famous  in  deahng  with  questions 
where  political  expediency  runs  counter  to  the  demands 
of  higher  church  poUcy. 

Since  the  days  of  the  councils  of  Constance  and 
of  Basel,  however,  there  has  always  existed  a  spirit  of 
sturdy  independence  among  German  CathoHcs,  and  in 
spite  of  discipHnary  measures  from  Rome,  this  spirit  has 
asserted  itself  steadily  in  the  Centre  party.  Gradually 
after  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  two  ten- 
dencies evolved  themselves  and  took  shape,  resulting  in 
the  formation  of  two  groups  among  the  leaders  and  to 
a  certain  extent  the  subordinate  officers  of  the  Cathohc 
world,  the  so-called  ''Cologne  group"  and  the  "Berlin 
group."  The  former,  while  acknowledging  the  author- 
ity of  the  church  in  religious  matters,  claimed  to  be 
politically  non-confessional,  supporting  the  Centre  as 
a  Christian  rather  than  a  church  body.  The  latter 
emphasized  the  Cathohc  view  of  hfe  in  all  questions, 
remaining  in  close  touch  with  the  church  even  in  matters 
not  concerning  rehgion.  The  former  beheves  in  non- 
confessional  trade-unions,  and  would  treat  the  evangeli- 
cal church  as  a  sister  church ;  the  latter  follows  closely 
the  direction  of  the  bishops  and  the  clergy.  While 
professedly  regarding  church  and  state  as  coordinate, 
each  sovereign  in  its  own  field,  it  conserves  first  of  all 
the  interests  of  the  church,  and  is  ever  ready  to  believe 
the  holy  faith  in  danger  and  to  sound  the  long  roll  of 
alarm  even  on  questions  of  party  expediency. 

It  cannot  be  for  a  moment  doubtful  with  which  of 
these  wings  the  diplomats  of  Rome  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  influential  clergy  are  to  be  found.     The  late 


THE   CHURCH  IN   POLITICS  211 

Cardinal  Kopp,  archbishop  of  Breslau,  was  long  regarded 
as  the  head  of  this  confessional  direction ;  and  the 
action  of  the  curia  in  191 2  in  selecting  a  man  of  similar 
views  as  successor  to  the  late  Dr.  Fischer,  the  Hberal- 
minded  archbishop  of  Cologne,  was  an  instance  of  the 
steady  pressure  from  Rome  to  which  the  German  epis- 
copate has  been  obKged  to  yield.  Most  clearly  has  this 
pressure  been  made  manifest  in  the  matter  of  the  CathoKc 
labor  unions,  the  most  dehcate  question  with  which  the 
Centrist  leaders  have  had  to  deal  since  the  days  of  the 
Septennat.  To  no  chapter  in  its  history  does  the  party 
look  back  with  more  justifiable  pride  than  to  the  mobih- 
zation  of  labor  in  the  cause  of  the  church  through  the 
so-called  "Christian"  unions.  This  movement,  which 
was  a  part  of  the  drift  of  the  party  toward  democracy, 
was  directed  especially  against  the  Socialists,  who  had 
begun  to  organize  Catholic  workmen  in  the  industrial 
Rhine-WestphaHan  district  into  unions  afhliated  with 
the  Social  Democratic  party.  While  not  approaching 
the  Socialist  unions  in  number,  the  Christian  unions 
soon  attained  a  very  large  membership  in  the  West  and 
in  Silesia.  Professedly  non-confessional,  they  did  not 
publish  any  statistics  of  the  faith  of  their  members, 
and  they  fought  in  more  than  one  labor  battle,  Uke  the 
coal  strike  of  1907,  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  the 
Socialist  workingmen.  Throughout  their  history  they 
have  remained  more  or  less  under  the  control  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Centre.  The  church  hierarchy  has,  how- 
ever, never  entirely  trusted  the  Christian  unions,  and 
the  followers  of  the  more  radical  wing  of  the  CathoUc 
party  organized  later  the  CathoKc  Workingmen's  Union, 
a  strictly  confessional  organization.  This  organization 
at  its  session  in  Berhn  at  Whitsuntide  191 2  received  the 
especial  papal  blessing,  the  curia  censuring  at  the  same 
time  the  Christian  unions  "because  they  separated 
labor  from  religion."  This  came  hke  a  bolt  from  the 
blue,  and  the  Centrist  leaders  sought  and  obtained  a 


212     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

respite  until  the  Vatican  could  hear  the  other  side  of 
the  matter,  at  the  same  time  calling  in  the  resources 
of  Prussian  diplomacy.  It  can  readily  be  seen  what 
tremendous  difficulties  have  lain  in  the  road  of  those 
Catholic  leaders  who  would  unite  a  national  policy  with 
the  unbending  universal  ideas  of  the  church. 

It  belongs  to  the  history  of  the  Centre  party  that  it 
has  upheld  the  federative  principle  in  the  national  con- 
stitution and  opposed  anything  which  would  increase 
the  powers  of  the  empire  at  the  expense  of  the  individual 
states.  It  was  called  into  being  largely  in  opposition 
to  Prussia,  and  it  has  steadily  opposed  anything  that 
would  augment  Prussia's  power.  Thus  in  191 1  it 
supported  vigorously  the  proposition  finally  incorpo- 
rated in  the  constitution  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  which  as- 
signed to  this  state  three  votes  in  the  Bundesrat  only 
in  case  these  votes  were  cast  against  Prussia's  vote. 
The  Poles  being  almost  to  a  man  Cathohc,  the  Centre 
has  consistently  opposed  Prussia's  attempts  at  the  for- 
cible nationahzation  of  this  Slavic  people.  It  has  like- 
wise steadily  opposed  anything  which  would  strengthen 
the  imperial  finances  and  make  the  nation  less  depen- 
dent on  the  proportional  contributions  from  the  in- 
dividual states  which  are  necessary  to  wipe  out  the 
deficit  in  the  empire's  annual  budget,  and  has  extended 
this  opposition  to  every  federal  income  and  inheritance 
tax.  With  respect  to  the  national  defenses,  the  party 
did,  as  we  have  seen,  undergo  something  Hke  a  conver- 
sion to  the  idea  of  a  greater  Germany,  and  became 
almost  as  willing  to  vote  supplies  as  the  National  Liberals 
themselves. 

In  social  matters  the  Centre  has  outstripped  all  other 
parties,  with  the  exception  of  the  Sociahsts.  in  its  de- 
mands for  the  protection  of  labor.  Ever  since  the  in- 
crease of  the  industrially  employed  milHons  forced  all 
parties  in  Germany  to  go  forward  with  labor  legislation 
the    Centre   has   made    the   workingmen   the   especial 


THE   CHURCH  IN   POLITICS  213 

object  of  its  care.  The  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
Catholic  workers  in  the  industrial  districts  of  the  West 
and  of  Silesia  have  had  their  claims  adroitly,  if  not  al- 
ways consistently,  presented  by  the  CathoKc  press.  Here 
their  leaders  have  been  engaged  in  a  bitter  struggle  with 
the  Social  Democrats,  who  have  sought  by  means  which 
varied  from  the  most  insidious  argument  to  open  vio- 
lence to  break  the  soHdarity  of  the  CathoKc  workers. 
In  its  able  and  powerful  press,  and  in  the  halls  of  the 
national  and  provincial  legislatures,  the  Centrist  leaders 
are  not  far  behind  the  SociaHsts  in  their  demands  for 
shorter  hours  for  labor  and  for  better  wages  and  better 
working  conditions,  particularly  in  the  mining  districts 
of  Westphalia,  where  a  large  percentage  of  the  labor  is 
CathoKc.  These  leaders  have  been  occasionally  forced 
into  a  difficult  position,  as  in  the  case  of  the  coal  strike 
of  191 2,  when  poKtical  expediency  ran  counter  to  the 
interests  of  labor;  but  their  discipline  has  held  firm, 
and  the  Christian  unions  followed  the  lead  of  the  party 
generals  even  when  interest  would  have  led  them  to 
make  common  cause  with  the  SociaKsts.  While,  with 
true  trimmer  poKcy,  the  party  has  occasionally  worked 
together  with  the  SociaKsts  both  in  the  empire  and  in 
Bavaria,  it  has  in  the  main  been  driven  into  a  reactionary 
position  in  its  effort  to  hinder  the  advance  of  sociaKsm. 
Thus,  although  in  the  Centre  platform,  which  is  the 
shortest  of  German  poKtical  platforms,  the  party  favors 
universal  suffrage,  it  did  everything  possible  to  defeat 
this  in  the  attempted  revision  of  the  Prussian  constitution 
in  1910,  because  universal  suffrage  would  mean  the  loss 
of  seats  in  favor  of  the  Social  Democrats. 

The  Social  Democrats  claim  to  represent  the  awakened 
class  consciousness  of  the  worker :  the  Clerical  party 
writes  the  spirit  of  Christian  humanity  on  its  banners. 
This  spirit  of  humanity  has  found  expression  in  many 
efforts  and  accomplishments  of  the  Centre.  It  regularly 
fought  for  a  humane  administration   of    the    colonies, 


214    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

regarding  these  vast  stretches  of  Africa,  peopled  by  un- 
taught savages,  less  as  sources  of  material  wealth  than 
as  opportunities  for  the  spread  of  Christian  civilization. 
Amid  the  many  sordid  demands  of  business  interests  for 
gain  at  any  cost,  the  Catholic  leaders  in  press  and 
parliament  consistently  advocated  humane  standards  in 
the  treatment  of  the  natives,  and  they  no  less  than  the 
SociaHsts  laid  bare  colonial  scandals  and  faced  un- 
popularity and  defeat  rather  than  sacrifice  their  ideals. 

The  energy  of  Catholic  societies  on  the  Continent  in 
combating  the  white  slave  traffic  and  in  the  protection 
of  women  and  girls  has  been  reflected  in  the  policy  of 
the  Centre  party.  It  has  been  always  the  sturdy 
opponent  of  vicious  Hterature  and  the  scandalous  pro- 
ductions with  which  greedy  publishers  have  in  recent 
years  flooded  Germany  under  the  cloak  of  art  and 
science.  The  floods  of  suggestive  books  and  pictures 
and  the  general  lowering  of  the  moral  tone  in  the  social 
life  of  the  rapidly  growing  cities  has  excited  the  alarm  of 
many  pubKc-spirited  men  and  women  in  Germany,  and 
much  has  been  done  on  the  part  of  church  societies  and 
other  organizations  to  fight  these  tendencies.  The 
Centre  is  the  only  political  party  which  has  made  this 
fight  a  consistent  part  of  its  practice.  Occasionally 
it  has  gone  too  far,  and  its  opponents  claim  that  it 
would  put  German  literature  and  art  in  leading  strings. 
Nevertheless,  the  wholesome  tone  which  rings  in  the 
Catholic  press  and  from  Catholic  speakers  on  these 
subjects  has  had  a  markedly  tonic  effect. 

It  is  plain  then  that  the  nation  reaps  advantages 
as  well  as  disadvantages  from  a  political  organization 
which  is  so  closely  allied  with  the  church.  In  another 
direction  the  political  influence  of  the  church  makes 
itself  felt  as  a  strong  conservative  force,  in  the  attitude 
of  the  Clerical  party  towards  the  schools.  Regarding 
no  subject  does  the  American  student  of  European 
politics   need    to   divest   himself   more    completely    of 


THE   CHURCH  IN  POLITICS  215 

occidental  prejudices  than  the  subject  of  confessional 
education  in  pubKc  schools.  Whatever  may  be  said  of 
the  necessity  of  divorcing  church  and  state  in  matters 
of  education,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  Germans, 
wdth  their  history  and  organization  of  society,  have  a 
very  different  problem  from  our  own,  and  that  such  a 
clean  sweep  as  the  Combes  ministry  made  of  pubhc 
rehgious  instruction  in  France  would  not  be  possible 
in  a  land  where  unbroken  traditions  of  rehgious  teaching 
in  the  public  schools  have  come  down  from  the  time  of 
Charlemagne.  Except  in  a  very  few  instances,  rehgious 
instruction  is  obhgatory  in  all  German  schools,  with  due 
regard  to  confessional  differences  (cf.  Chap.  XVI).  This 
practice  is  one  which  the  Centre  party  as  the  mouth- 
piece of  the  Catholic  Church  defends  as  vigorously  and 
guards  as  jealously  as  any  article  of  its  faith.  "We 
still  hve  in  a  Christian  state,"  said  one  of  the  Clerical 
leaders,  Dr.  Dittrich,  in  the  Prussian  Landtag  in  1912. 
"If  it  is  therefore  one  of  the  duties  of  the  church  to 
care  for  the  rehgious  foundation  of  national  Hfe,  it  is 
also  a  duty  of  the  state.  Education  must  above  all 
proceed  along  the  old  approved  hnes  of  Christian  doc- 
trine. We  wish  the  preservation  of  the  elementary 
schools  on  the  old  basis  of  Christianity." 

Piety  without  bigotry,  morahty  without  intolerance, 
Christian  love  and  humanity  wdde  enough  to  include 
all  men,  —  how  often  this  ideal  appears  as  the  founda- 
tion stone  of  the  church  and  how  soon  it  disappears  in 
contact  with  the  struggle  for  place  and  power.  When 
the  church  enters  pohtics,  it  exposes  its  subhme  principles 
to  degradation  by  the  constant  association  with  ex- 
pediency, and  intolerance  and  selfishness  soon  rule  in  the 
place  of  the  Christian  virtues.  There  has  been  much  in 
the  trimming  and  deviousness  of  Clerical  pohtics  in 
Germany  to  make  one  wish  that  Catholic  rights  in  the 
Fatherland  might  have  been  defended  without  the  crys- 
taUization    of    confessional    interests  into  party  form, 


2i6    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Math  the  constant  fanning  into  flame  of  the  smouldering 
embers  of  rehgious  hatred.  Under  the  plea  that  the 
church  is  threatened  it  is  all  too  easy  to  bring  the  voter 
into  line  against  his  interest  and  judgment,  and  despite 
the  denial  of  enhghtened  German  Catholics,  it  is  true 
that  many  thousand  voters  still  go  to  the  polls  with  the 
conviction  that  to  refuse  to  support  the  Centre  candi- 
date is  denying  obedience  to  the  Holy  Father  in  Rome. 
On  the  other  hand  the  Centre  party  has  made  enormous 
progress  in  the  idea  of  nationaHty.  It  has  sturdily 
maintained  its  opposition  to  the  unitary  principle  and 
has  ever  been  the  defender  of  the  rights  and  priNdleges 
of  the  individual  states,  but  with  the  passing  of  the  old 
bitterness  engendered  by  the  Kulturkampf,  it  became 
essentially  a  national  party,  not  less  concerned  with 
the  defense  of  the  new  Fatherland  and  the  growth  of 
Germany  both  at  home  and  overseas  than  the  National 
Liberals  themselves.  For  reasons  which  have  been 
sufficiently  indicated  the  German  Catholic  was  much 
slower  than  his  evangehcal  brother  to  accept  the  idea 
of  the  new  empire,  but  his  patriotism  and  readiness 
for  sacrifice  are  no  less. 


CHAPTER  XI 

The  Conquered  Provinces 

"Handed  over,  in  contempt  of  all  justice  and  by  an 
execrable  abuse  of  power,  to  the  domination  of  a  foreign 
sovereign,  we  declare  once  more  null  and  void  the  agree- 
ment which  disposes  of  us  without  our  consent.  Your 
brothers  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  separated  in  this  manner 
from  the  common  family,  will  preserve,  though  absent 
from  the  fireside,  a  faithful  affection  for  France  until 
the  day  comes  when  we  shall  return  once  more  to  our 
places  in  our  home!"  These  pathetic  words  were  the 
farewell  address  of  the  delegates  from  Alsace-Lorraine 
to  the  French  national  assembly  at  Bordeaux.  On 
that  day,  March  4,  1871,  the  peace  negotiated  by  Thiers 
and  Bismarck  had  already  been  approved  by  the  earnest- 
faced  men  who  had  gathered  to  save  France.  The 
two  provinces  which  had  echoed  for  months  under  the 
tread  of  German  soldiers  had  passed  finally  from  Gallic 
to  Germanic  sovereignty.  Nothing  in  the  bitter  cup 
of  humihation  which  France  drained  in  the  "terrible 
year"  was  equal  to  this,  and  French  orators  and  poets 
bade  many  a  sad  farewell  to  the  departing  sister  prov- 
inces. Their  sympathy  was  aroused  again  when  some- 
thing over  a  year  after  the  conclusion  of  the  peace 
of  Frankfort  the  citizens  of  the  conquered  land  were 
forced  to  make  a  bitter  choice  between  the  acceptance 
of  their  lot  as  subjects  of  the  German  empire  and  the 
abandonment  of  their  homes.  After  October  i,  1872, 
all  persons  remaining  in  the  provinces  were  to  be  de- 
prived of  any  choice  and  henceforth  regarded  as  German 

217 


2i8    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

subjects.  French  historians  aver  that  two  hundred 
thousand  sons  and  daughters  of  the  provinces  deserted 
the  smiUng  Alsatian  fields  and  the  valley  of  the  Moselle 
in  the  last  days  of  September  of  that  year.  Of  two 
hundred  magistrates  only  five  are  said  to  have  remained. 
While  one  cannot  share  the  perfervid  enthusiasm  of  the 
French  writers  of  the  time  for  those  who  preferred  the 
name  of  Frenchmen  to  sharing  the  trials  of  their  own 
narrower  homeland,  one  must  credit  them  with  sincere 
devotion  to  an  ideal.  They  were  for  the  most  part 
people  of  wealth  and  refinement,  and  many  of  them  as 
residents  in  Paris  have  since  that  day  formed  the  most 
irreconcilable  group  of  Germany's  foes. 

The  recovery  of  Alsace  was  the  popular  rallying  cry 
with  the  Germans  who  wore  the  helmets  and  carried 
the  rifles  in  1870.  Far  more  than  revenge  for  the  humilia- 
tions imposed  by  Napoleon  I,  the  rewinning  of  German 
territory  west  of  the  Rhine  was  and  is  the  popular  slogan 
for  German  historian  and  story-teller  in  discussing  the 
war  with  France,  which  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  less  a 
war  of  aggression  than  an  insurance  for  German  unity. 
Alsace  and  Strasburg !  What  memories  these  conjured 
up  in  the  soul  of  the  whole  romance-loving  nation  east 
of  the  Rhine !  Memories  of  Erwin  von  Steinbach  and 
the  famous  Gothic  minster  at  Strasburg  with  its 
truncated  tower;  of  Sebastian  Brant  and  Fischart  and 
the  Meistersingers  and  all  the  rugged  but  sturdy  and 
honest-hearted  culture  of  the  most  German  of  all  cen- 
turies, the  sixteenth ;  most  romantic  of  all,  memories 
of  the  young  student  Goethe  wooing  the  daughter  of  the 
village  pastor  in  the  grape  arbor  at  Sesenheim,  —  all 
proofs  sufiicient  that  the  strong  German  heart  beat  in 
Alsace,  concealing  itself  but  poorly  under  the  shining 
gloss  of  French  language  and  manners.  No  wonder  that 
the  Wacht  am  Rhein,  written  in  1841  as  an  early  expres- 
sion of  the  German  impulse  towards  the  West  that  had 
been  manifest  ever  since  the  fall  of  Napoleon,  became 


THE   CONQUERED   PROVINCES  219 

the  popular  song  of  the  advancing  armies  in  1870.  The 
veriest  beginner  in  German  history  in  the  nineteenth 
century  learns  to  reckon  with  the  romantic  impulses  of 
the  nation  as  a  very  real  factor  in  shaping  events :  to 
the  Rhine  romanticism  which  the  Wars  of  Liberation 
called  into  being,  the  war  of  1870  added  an  Alsatian 
romanticism,  which  fired  German  hearts  and  helped  to 
win  German  victories  at  Worth  and  Metz. 

One  needs  indeed  a  considerable  share  of  German 
romance  if  one  is  to  indorse  the  theory  of  German 
historians  that  Germany  was  justified  in  annexing 
Alsace-Lorraine  for  historical  reasons.  Alsace  has,  it 
is  true,  a  preponderatingly  German  population,  which 
spoke  in  1871  a  German  dialect.  The  same  is,  however, 
true  of  the  German  cantons  of  Switzerland.  In  its 
early  history  Alsace  formed  a  part  of  the  Roman  and 
Frankish  empires  and  of  the  West  Frankish  kingdom, 
and  in  the  tenth  century  was  incorporated  into  the  Ger- 
manic empire.  To  the  empire  it  then  belonged  for  seven 
hundred  years,  until  the  Thirty  Years'  War  brought  the 
French  invader.  The  major  part  of  the  provinces  was 
conquered  at  that  time  and  fell  to  France  in  the  treaties 
of  Westphalia  in  1648.  Other  parts,  with  Strasburg, 
were  stolen  thirty  years  later  by  Louis  XIV,  on  various 
pretexts  and  confirmed  in  French  possession  at  the 
peace  of  Ryswick  in  1697,  ^.nd  the  remaining  small  dis- 
tricts were  absorbed  during  the  wars  of  the  Revolution 
and  by  the  treaties  of  1814  became  ofl&cially  French. 
If,  however,  reparation  for  these  repeated  acts  of  ag- 
gression was  due,  it  was  due  to  Austria,  which  was 
at  that  time  the  head  of  the  crumbling  Holy  Romian 
Empire  and  to  the  several  dynasties  whose  princes 
had  lost  their  petty  states.  By  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth centur}^  French  manners  and  customs  had 
taken  possession  of  the  intellectual  classes,  and  the 
dialect-free  French  had  supplanted  the  Alsatian 
patois  as  the  language  of  culture;    in  fact,  after  the 


220    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

revolutionary  and  Napoleonic  wars  had  brought  French 
poKtical  life  into  such  close  touch  with  the  west  bank  of 
the  Rhine,  French  culture  had  thoroughly  won  over  the 
upper  landed  gentry  and  the  upper  and  middle  classes 
of  the  Alsatian  towns.  The  French  claim  to  Alsace 
was  as  strong  as  is  Prussia's  claim  to  Posen,  with  its  62 
per  cent  of  Poles  or  to  northern  Schleswig,  with  its  pre- 
dominantly Danish  population. 

If  this  be  true  of  Alsace,  German  historians  can  find 
still  less  historical  justification  for  the  annexation  of 
Lorraine,  where,  as  we  have  seen  (cf.  page  4),  the 
German  line  was  made  to  dip  to  the  west  to  include 
Metz.  The  capital  of  the  upper  Moselle,  like  the  part 
of  Lorraine  lying  farther  west  and  remaining  in  French 
possession  and  like  the  French  provinces  Picardy, 
Champagne  and  Bourgogne,  originally  had  a  Germanic 
population  and  language,  and  it  is  possible  that  the 
dialect  of  the  early  Frankish  conquerors  may  have  main- 
tained itself  in  and  around  Metz  until  the  twelfth  century. 
The  city  and  neighboring  districts,  which,  like  Alsace,  had 
since  the  tenth  century  belonged  to  the  Germanic  em- 
pire, were  seized  by  France  in  1552,  and,  like  the  major 
part  of  Alsace,  definitely  ceased  to  be  a  part  of  the  em- 
pire at  the  peace  of  Westphalia  in  1648.  Other  small 
sections  to  the  east  and  southeast  were  conquered  by 
the  arms  of  Louis  XIV  in  1659,  1661  and  1080;  but 
the  greater  part  of  Lorraine  was  not  attached  to  the 
French  monarchy  until  1 766.  It  is,  however,  certain  that 
for  many  hundred  years  the  upper  Moselle  had  been 
French  in  language  and  culture.  The  German  census 
of  1880  showed  that  out  of  855  communes  in  Alsace 
only  44  spoke  French,  while  out  of  752  in  Lorraine, 
in  341  French  was  the  language  of  the  peasantry. 

It  is  evident  that  the  student  of  history  would  find  it 
hard  to  justify  the  annexation  of  Alsace-Lorraine  on  any 
theory  of  romantic  justice  or  racial  or  cultural  attach- 
ment.   Their  annexation  was,  however,  justifiable  in  a 


THE   CONQUERED   PROVINCES  221 

very  real  way  by  the  strategic  requirements  of  Germany* 
in  1 87 1  and  after.  The  Vosges  range  which  divides 
Alsace  from  France  is  as  much  a  wall  and  defense  against 
every  aggressor  in  this  age  of  twentieth  century  technique 
as  when  its  steep  sides  turned  back  the  Allemanian  in- 
vader fourteen  centuries  ago.  With  Alsace  in  German 
possession  and  Strasburg  and  Colmar  fortified,  Metz 
became  as  never  before  the  key  to  western  Germany. 
Metz  in  German  hands  was  a  guarantee  that  the  neu- 
trality of  Luxemburg  could  be  violated  only  from  the 
German  side  and  that  no  surprise  attack  could  be 
launched  into  the  vitals  of  the  empire  down  the  valley  of 
the  Moselle.  Indeed,  the  mountain  chains  of  the  Vosges, 
far  more  than  the  Rhine  is  the  strategic  military  frontier 
between  France  and  Germany,  while  farther  north  Metz 
and  Diedenhofen  are  the  keys  to  the  Moselle  valley,  and 
their  possession  by  Germany  is  a  strategic  necessity  for 
defense  —  against  possible  French  attack — of  the  age- 
old  German  district  which  contains  Worms  and  iVIayence, 
Treves  and  Coblenz,  and  even  Cologne  and  Aix-la- 
Chapelle.  If  the  instinct  for  self-preservation  suspends 
less  urgent  laws  for  nations  as  well  as  individuals, 
Germany  was  certainly  justified  in  retaining  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  and  thus  securing  natural  defenses,  the  lack 
of  which  had  made  the  Fatherland  for  centuries  a  play- 
ground for  foreign  greed  and  ambition. 

With  the  annexation  of  the  provinces,  the  necessity 
arose  immediately  for  their  articulation  into  the  empire 
and  their  government.  Not  a  few  voices  called  urgently 
for  the  incorporation  of  Alsace-Lorraine  into  Prussia, 
as  had  been  done  with  Schleswig-Holstein,  and  there  is 
little  doubt  that  the  empire  would  have  saved  itself 
much  irritation  if  this  had  been  done.  However,  the 
colHsion  of  the  Prussian  mihtary  and  official  system, 
with  its  rigid  discipline  and  many  Verbotens,  and  the 
easy-going  customs  and  traditions  of  the  Southwest 
would  have  been  terrific.    The  provinces  had  been  won, 


222    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

not  by  Prussia  alone,  but  by  the  entire  nation  in  arms ; 
and  a  consideration  of  South  German  feelings  led  Bis- 
marck to  incorporate  them  into  the  empire  as  "imperial 
land,"  held  and  administered  by  the  empire  as  a  whole. 
The  government  of  this  "Imperial  Land"  began  with 
a  military  dictatorship,  and  reached  a  final  stage  of 
development  with  the  granting  of  a  constitution  forty 
years  later,  this  gradual  process  in  self-government  being 
accompanied  by  the  steady  progress  of  even  the  peasantry 
of  western  Lorraine  in  Germanization.  After  two  years 
of  military  dictatorship,  Alsace-Lorraine  was  admitted 
to  the  privileges  granted  by  the  imperial  constitution, 
although  the  governor  was  still  empowered  to  declare 
martial  law  and  the  troops  were  under  his  direct  com- 
mand. The  "  Imperial  Land  "  was  represented  by  fifteen 
delegates  in  the  Reichstag;  and  gradually  as  the  dis- 
turbed condition  of  the  country  abated,  the  citizens 
were  intrusted  with  some  control  of  local  affairs  through 
a  representative  committee,  which  developed  by  degrees 
from  a  purely  advisory  body  into  one  with  the  power  of 
accepting  or  rejecting  laws  passed  by  the  imperial  parlia- 
ment for  the  government  of  the  territory.  In  1879  the 
governor  or  Statthalter  was  duly  invested  with  all  the  attri- 
butes of  a  representative  of  the  imperial  power  in  the  prov- 
ince and  was  surrounded  by  a  ministry.  Unfortunately 
the  governors  seem  to  have  been  chosen  for  the  most  part 
for  no  other  reason  than  because  they  enjoyed  the  favor 
of  the  Emperor,  and  they  filled  the  difficult  office  with 
only  indifferent  success.  Chafing  under  the  so-called 
"dictatorship  paragraph,"  which  permitted  the  governor 
to  suspend  constitutional  rights  in  case  of  emergency, 
the  people  of  Alsace-Lorraine  manifested  their  resent- 
ment at  German  rule  in  many  ways;  and  periods  of 
repression,  when  French  newspapers  were  confiscated, 
French  clubs  suppressed  and  students  and  others  sus- 
pected of  French  sympathy  given  severe  prison  sentences 
or  exiled,  varied  with  periods  when  the  governor  and 


THE   CONQXJERED   PROVINCES  223 

ministers  did  everything  they  could  to  promote  good 
feeling  with  the  children  of  the  land  and  to  entice  them 
into  the  service  of  the  government.  Finally  in  1902  the 
Reiclistag  felt  it  safe  to  withdraw  the  dictatorial  powers 
of  the  governor,  thereby  elevating  the  people  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  according  to  their  own  picturesque  statement, 
from  "second-class  Germans"  to  "first-class  Germans"; 
and  at  last  in  191 1,  after  long  discussion  and  despite 
much  opposition,  a  constitution  was  finally  granted  the 
"Imperial  Land,"  by  which  it  w-as  given  full  self-govern- 
ment and  representation  in  the  Bundesrat  along  with  its 
sister  states.  Under  this  constitution  large  powers  are 
still  guaranteed  to  the  Emperor,  who  names  the  governor 
and  one-half  of  the  upper  chamber  of  the  Diet  and  retains 
a  veto  power  on  the  laws.  The  other  half  of  the  upper 
chamber  represents  the  church  and  learned  institutions 
and  the  cities.  The  lower  house  of  the  Diet  is  elected  by 
unrestricted  suffrage,  thereby  giving  the  constitution  the 
democratic  stamp  demanded  by  the  French  traditions  of 
the  country. 

The  attitude  of  the  population  of  Alsace-Lorraine  tow- 
ard the  empire  has  been  already  indicated.  With  the 
exception  of  Protestant  circles  (Alsace-Lorraine  was  in 
187 1  four-fifths  Roman  Cathohc),  the  intelligent  and 
representative  part  of  the  people  accepted  allegiance  to 
Germany  as  a  bitter  necessity  and  bore  it  for  many 
years  as  a  grievous  burden.  Especially  the  wealthy 
classes,  bound  by  so  many  ties  to  France  and  French 
culture,  resented  the  change  of  Fatherland  and  struggled 
as  best  they  could  against  the  hard  hand  of  Bismarck. 
And  his  hand  was  hard.  Men  who  were  justly  proud  of 
the  part  which  their  land  had  played  in  the  revolutionary 
and  Napoleonic  wars  were  obliged  to  send  their  sons  to 
serve  their  mihtary  years  under  Prussian  drill  sergeants 
in  Silesia  or  the  more  distant  East,  for  the  military 
authorities  during  the  first  thirty  years  regarded  a 
separation  from  the  native  soil  as  the  best  system  for 


2  24    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

germanizing  and  nationalizing  the  young  Alsatian  and 
Lorrainer.  Men  who  had  prided  themselves  on  the 
purity  of  their  French  were  forced  to  see  French  dropped 
as  a  subject  of  instruction  in  the  schools  and  a  guerilla 
war  waged  on  French  newspapers  and  French-speak- 
ing clubs.  Worse  than  all,  the  people  of  the  "Imperial 
Land,"  who  had  been  accustomed  to  the  easy-going, 
indulgent  methods  of  French  administration,  had  to 
submit  to  be  aggressively  and  energetically  governed 
by  a  bureaucracy  which  took  Prussian  methods  as  its 
ideal.  The  bitter  feeHng  which  all  of  this  engendered 
found  expression  in  continuous  protests  on  the  part  of 
the  fifteen  delegates  in  the  Reichstag,  who  made  common 
cause  with  Poles,  Danes,  Guelphs  and  Socialists  in  op- 
posing increases  in  the  army  and  every  other  national 
measure. 

But  time  heals  all  wounds,  and  even  before  the  acces- 
sion of  William  II,  the  population  of  Alsace-Lorraine 
had  begun  to  show  some  appreciation  of  the  vast  material 
benefits  which  union  with  the  other  German  states  had 
brought  them.  The  young  Emperor  attempted  here  as 
elsewhere  to  soften  the  hard  contrasts  which  the  founda- 
tion of  the  empire  had  left.  The  university  of  Stras- 
burg,  which  since  its  reopening  in  1871  had  enjoyed  the 
especial  favor  of  the  imperial  government  as  a  centre  for 
the  re-germanization  of  Alsace,  received  new  marks  of 
imperial  favor.  Especial  concessions  were  made  to  the 
CathoHcs  of  the  "Imperial  Land.''  The  Emperor  pur- 
chased for  himself  the  beautiful  estate  Urville  in  Lor- 
raine, and  made  repeated  visits  to  Strasburg,  where  in 
the  imperial  palace  he  sought  to  come  into  personal 
touch  with  the  notables  of  the  region.  In  short,  nothing 
was  left  undone  to  win  the  affections  of  the  conquered 
provinces  without  sacrifice  of  the  national  program  of  re- 
germanization.  The  chivalrous  people  of  the  provinces 
took  pride  in  making  presents  to  the  Emperor  and 
Empress,  and  seemed  to  have  made  such  progress  in 


THE   CONQUERED   PROVINCES  225 

nationalism  that  in  1902  all  dictatorial  powers  were 
taken  away  from  the  governor,  and  in  the  following 
year  the  recruits  of  Alsace-Lorraine  received  the  long- 
desired  permission  to  serve  out  their  active  miUtary 
years  within  sight  of  their  native  mountains.  When, 
however,  in  191 1  the  land  seemed  ripe  for  complete 
self-government  under  a  constitution,  the  majority  of 
the  Alsace-Lorraine  delegates  in  the  Reichstag  voted 
against  this  instrument  on  the  ground  that  it  gave  too 
much  power  to  the  Emperor  and  did  not  accord  to  the 
citizens  of  the  new  state  the  full  measure  of  independence 
for  which  they  had  longed. 

The  constitution  of  Alsace-Lorraine  was  a  compromise. 
The  best  testimony  to  its  fairness  is  to  be  found  in  the 
dissatisfaction  with  which  it  was  greeted  both  by  the 
rabid  Prussophiles,  who  would  gladly  have  annexed 
the  "Imperial  Land"  to  the  major  monarchy  of  the 
empire,  to  be  painfully  but  thoroughly  digested,  as 
were  Schleswig-Holstein,  Hanover  and  Hesse-Cassel, 
and  by  the  rabid  Alsatian  patriots  who  had  fixed  their 
eyes  on  nothing  less  than  practical  independence  of 
the  empire.  The  results  of  its  adoption  at  once  showed 
that  the  nationalization  of  the  conquered  lands  was 
far  from  complete.  In  place  of  the  old  protest,  there 
showed  itself  at  once  a  spirit  of  "Alsace-Lorraine  for 
the  Alsace-Lorrainers."  A  national  party  was  formed, 
which  was  defeated  at  the  polls  by  the  ultramontane 
Centre,  it  is  true ;  but  the  latter,  and  indeed  all  other 
parties,  showed  as  soon  as  the  first  Diet  convened  at 
Strasburg  that  nothing  was  further  from  their  minds 
than  a  docile  obedience  to  the  demands  of  the  Emperor's 
ministry.  Men  like  the  priest  Emil  Wetterle,  almost 
as  well  known  in  France  as  in  his  native  Alsace,  soon 
found  numerous  points  for  rebellion.  The  supplies  for 
certain  government  perquisites,  such  as  the  "imperial 
hunt,"  in  which  the  Emperor  had  taken  no  part  since 
1896,  were  stricken  from  the  budget.  The  household 
Q 


2  26     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

expense  account  of  the  governor  was  reduced,  and 
twenty-five  thousand  dollars  which  had  been  laid  aside 
each  year  for  private  expenses  of  government  was  held 
up  until  the  Diet  should  be  guaranteed  control  over 
the  items  of  its  expenditure.  Sympathy  with  France 
and  hostility  to  the  empire  began  to  show  themselves 
more  boldly  both  in  the  press  of  the  new  state  and  in 
the  speeches  of  various  representative  Alsatians. 

The  imperial  ministry  did  not  hesitate  to  make  re- 
prisals. The  Graf  ens  taden  locomotive  works,  which 
had  for  years  furnished  engines  for  the  railways  of  Al- 
sace-Lorraine and  neighboring  provinces,  suddenly  had 
all  of  their  orders  cancelled  and  were  told  to  look  for  no 
more  until  the  director,  a  well-known  pro-French  en- 
thusiast, should  have  been  dismissed.  He  finally  had 
to  go,  in  spite  of  frantic  protests  in  the  Diet  and  the 
press.  The  unpopular  Minister  of  the  Interior,  Mandel, 
was  decorated  for  his  zeal  by  the  Emperor;  and  the 
monarch  himself  on  a  visit  to  Strasburg  in  May  191 2 
gave  expression  to  impulsive  threats  against  the  con- 
stitution which  aroused  bitter  resentment  both  within 
and  without  Alsace-Lorraine  (cf.  page  no).  In  short, 
the  introduction  of  self-government,  safeguarded  even 
as  it  was,  showed  plainly  that  the  people  of  the  con- 
quered provinces  did  not  yet  feel  themselves  a  part  of 
the  German  empire. 

The  sober  thought  of  Germany  was  puzzled  and 
humiliated  by  the  continual  recurrence  of  the  Alsace- 
Lorraine  problem.  The  old  difficulty  which  the  Prus- 
sian-German administration  has  always  had  to  face  in 
its  contact  with  subject  peoples  showed  itself  in  renewed 
force  after  the  granting  of  the  constitution,  the  difficulty 
of  making  concessions  to  the  spirit  of  local  self-govern- 
ment and  local  traditions,  generally.  It  may  be  ad- 
mitted that  there  is  no  system  of  administration  so 
effective  as  the  Prusso-German  bureaucracy  when  deal- 
ing with  Germans  who  have  been  trained  in  the  schools 


THE   CONQLERKD   PROVINCES  227 

and  discipline  of  the  Fatherland.  It  is  equally  certain 
that  when  it  comes  into  contact  with  other  races  and 
conditions  it  adapts  itself  to  the  new  surroundings  only 
with  great  difficulty  and  produces  a  maximum  of  friction. 
Begotten  as  the  Prussian  system  was  under  conditions 
where  iron  discipline  was  a  requisite  for  success,  thor- 
oughly convinced  of  its  own  efiSciency,  it  knows  no  law 
but  that  of  force  and  fails  in  those  peaceful  contests 
where  victory  must  be  won  by  conciliation.  If  the 
people  of  the  conquered  provinces  are  to  be  won  over 
for  the  empire  at  all,  it  must  be  by  granting  them  a  full 
measure  of  self-government  and  wide  play  for  the  de- 
velopment of  their  own  culture,  and  if  need  be,  freedom 
to  use  the  language  which  had  been  associated  with  that 
culture  for  two  hundred  years.  History  shows  many 
instances  where  a  conquered  people,  like  the  Southern 
States  after  the  American  civil  war  or  the  Boers  of  South 
Africa,  has  been  won  over  to  hearty  loyalty  when  ac- 
corded the  right  to  govern  itself  after  its  own  traditions. 
That  this  was  denied  to  the  people  of  Alsace-Lorraine 
in  the  early  years  after  the  annexation,  was  excusable 
through  fear  of  France,  although  it  is  doubtful  if  the 
thoroughgoing  German  bureaucracy  with  its  determina- 
tion to  regermanize  the  pro\dnces  would  have  granted 
them  self-government,  even  if  the  danger  of  French 
revenge  had  been  farther  away.  With  the  adoption  of 
the  constitution  in  191 1,  however,  an  opportunity  was 
offered  the  government  to  show  the  "Imperial  Land" 
a  really  magnanimous  spirit  and  to  promote  the  working 
out  of  the  problems  of  the  new  state  with  a  minimum  of 
administrative  interference,  even  at  the  cost  of  con- 
siderable noisy  fermentation  on  the  part  of  uneasy 
spirits. 

That  this  was  not  to  be  done  was  apparent  from  the 
first.  Not  only  the  reprisals  mentioned  in  connection 
with  the  strife  with  the  Diet  showed  that,  but  the 
constantly  growing  irritation  which   followed.     French 


2  28    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

newspapers  and  French-speaking  clubs  were  harassed, 
as  in  the  days  of  Bismarck,  and  the  army  administration, 
doubtless  alarmed  by  the  international  situation,  which 
seemed  in  1913  so  full  of  danger,  once  more  decreed 
that  conscripts  from  Alsace-Lorraine  should  serve  their 
terms  of  military  service  outside  of  their  native  state. 

In  some  of  its  acts  the  imperial  government  came  very 
near  making  itself  ridiculous,  as  in  the  prosecution  for 
treason  of  the  Alsatian  poet-artist,  Jacob  Waltz,  who 
under  the  name  of  "OncleHansi"  had  published  satires 
against  the  German  administration  in  the  form  of  chil- 
dren's books.  For  the  latest  of  these,  Mon  Village, 
he  was  tried  in  June  1914,  by  the  Imperial  Court  at 
Leipsic  on  the  charge  of  high  treason  and  after  a  hearing 
which  gave  the  French  and  British  papers  abundant 
opportunity  for  satirical  comments,  he  was  acquitted 
of  this  charge  but  was  sentenced  to  a  year's  im.prison- 
ment  for  insulting  the  gendarmes  and  inciting  to  dis- 
order, a  sentence  which  he  escaped  by  flight  to  France. 
The  Berlin  government  was  harassed  by  the  fear  of 
treasonable  arrangements  between  Alsace-Lorraine  and 
Paris.  That  this  fear  was  well  grounded  was  made 
more  than  probable  by  the  fact  that  with  the  declaration 
of  martial  law  in  the  "Imperial  Land"  after  the  war 
tocsin  sounded  at  the  beginning  of  August  1914,  several 
prominent  Alsatians,  including  Wetterle,  fled  across  the 
border  into  France,  and  that  others  who  were  not  so 
fortunate  as  to  make  their  escape  were  arrested  and  found 
guilty  of  treasonable  acts. 

That  these  doings  could  have  caused  any  serious  harm 
to  Germany's  relations  to  France  seems,  however,  un- 
thinkable. Certainly  any  irritation  of  this  kind  would 
have  been  more  than  offset  by  the  gain  in  confidence  on 
the  part  of  the  people  of  the  provinces  toward  the  em- 
pire. As  it  was,  however,  the  threats  against  the  con- 
stitution and  the  various  pin  pricks  which  the  government 
was  able  to  inflict  effectively  destroyed  any  national 


THE   CONQUERED   PROVINCES  229 

patriotism  which  the  granting  of  the  constitution  might 
have  inspired.  Popular  irritation  grew  and  showed  it- 
self in  many  ways,  culminating  in  the  incidents  at  Za- 
bern  in  December  1913.  In  this  busy  Alsatian  town 
of  some  ten  thousand  inhabitants  a  Prussian  regiment 
of  infantry  was  quartered.  Soldiers  on  duty  at  the 
barracks  and  at  liberty  in  the  town  had  been  subjected 
to  insults,  and  in  several  cases  rough  treatment  on  the 
part  of  rude  fellows  of  the  baser  sort  among  the  populace. 
Their  officers,  filled  with  the  Prussian  tradition  of  mili- 
tary supremacy,  ordered  the  privates  to  make  forcible 
resistance,  employing  at  the  same  time  the  rugged 
language  of  the  barracks,  which  being  faithfully  re- 
ported in  the  town,  added  still  further  to  the  excitement. 
A  crisis  was  reached  in  an  encounter  between  cixdUans 
and  a  squad  of  soldiers  led  by  a  young  Keutenant,  in 
which  the  latter  fearing,  as  he  claimed,  that  he  would  be 
assaulted  by  a  civilian  of  the  lower  class,  with  the  conse- 
quent irreparable  loss  of  honor  according  to  the  peculiar 
Prussian  military  tradition,  sabred  a  lame  shoemaker. 
In  the  riot  which  resulted  Colonel  Reutter,  in  command 
at  the  barracks,  took  over  the  administration  of  public 
order,  brusquely  thrusting  aside  the  civil  officials  and 
pacif}dng  the  city  by  the  abrupt  methods  of  the  military. 
Instantly  a  shout  of  protest  arose,  not  only  from  x^lsace- 
Lorraine,  but  from  all  non-feudal  circles  in  Germany 
as  well.  The  rude  supplanting  of  the  civil  power  by  the 
mihtary  was  regarded  as  a  recession  to  the  most  auto- 
cratic days  of  Prussian  history,  and  in  the  Reichstag 
loud  calls  went  up  for  an  authoritative  statement  from 
the  Kaiser.  As  we  have  seen  (cf.  page  137),  the  Im- 
perial Diet  recorded  a  vote  of  censure  upon  the  Chan- 
cellor for  a  speech  in  which  the  majesty  of  the  law  was 
not  vindicated.  The  whole  matter  went  to  the  Emperor 
as  supreme  military  authority  and  the  net  result  was  the 
transferring  of  the  regiment  and  the  court-martiahng  of 
its  officers .     The  latter  were  finally  acquitted ,  and  Colonel 


230    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Reutter  soon  after  was  promoted  by  the  Emperor.  The 
feeling  of  the  feudal  classes  was  summed  up  in  the  words 
of  the  reactionary  Police  President  of  Berlin,  Von  Jagow : 
"Alsace-Lorraine  is  the  enemy's  country !"  Non-feudal 
Germany  accepted  a  technical  statement  from  the 
ministry  confirming  the  supremacy  of  the  constitution 
over  the  military  power,  \vith  a  further  promise  from 
the  government  that  a  certain  old  Prussian  cabinet 
order  of  1820  which  might  be  interpreted  to  the  contrary 
would  be  amended.  Radical  and  Socialist  were  the 
more  ready  to  still  their  attacks  and  hush  the  matter 
up,  because  the  French  journals,  always  ready  to  foment 
discord  in  the  lost  provinces,  had  seized  upon  the  situa- 
tion. 

Is  it  then  a  reunion  with  France  that  the  people  of 
Alsace-Lorraine  desire?  Such  at  least  has  always  been 
the  view  of  the  French  press.  Many  of  the  Paris  journals 
maintained  correspondents  at  Metz  and  Strasburg  and 
elsewhere  in  Alsace-Lorraine ;  and  if  one  could  believe 
the  highly  tinted  reports  which  came  from  these  sources, 
the  people  of  the  lost  provinces  were  languishing  in 
chains  and  awaiting  with  eagerness  the  moment  of  a 
return  into  the  arms  of  Mother  France.  The  annual 
demonstrations  in  Paris,  with  the  depositing  of  wreaths 
before  the  Strasburg  monument  on  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde,  grew  with  the  reawakening  of  French  patriot- 
ism after  the  Morocco  affair.  The  writer,  however,  who 
had  good  opportunities  of  getting  acquainted  with  the 
"Imperial  Land"  and  its  people  in  the  decade  preceding 
the  European  war,  must  share  the  opinion  of  those  ob- 
servers who  were  not  able  to  find  much  real  enthusiasm 
for  France  there.  That  there  was  much  sentimental 
sympathy  for  the  brilliant  nation  to  the  westward,  par- 
ticularly among  the  wealthier  families,  cannot  be  denied. 
But  so  far  as  could  be  judged,  there  were  not  many 
Alsatians  or  Lorrainers  who  would  have  liked  to  be  French 
again. 


THE   CONQUERED   PROVINCES  231 

Forty  odd  years  of  separation  has  not  availed  to 
make  the  inhabitants  of  the  provinces  Germans,  but 
they  have  thoroughly  unmade  them  Frenchmen.  The 
industrious  people  of  the  Alsatian  valleys  and  plain  and 
the  valleys  of  the  Moselle  and  the  Saar  realize  the  enor- 
mous advantages  which  they  have  enjoyed  for  the  prod- 
ucts of  their  land  and  factories  through  the  union  with  the 
German  states,  and  had  it  been  possible  to  hold  a  pleb- 
iscite, they  would  undoubtedly  have  voted  to  retain 
these  rather  than  return  divided  up  into  departments  of 
France.  On  the  other  hand,  there  has  been  absolutely 
no  s}Tnpathy  with  the  poHtical  greatness  of  the  German 
empire.  Pan-Germanism  has  had  no  followers  among 
the  native  people  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  who  are  convinced 
of  the  greatness  of  their  own  fatherland  and  eager  to  ob- 
tain every  advantage  for  it.  This  particularism,  whose 
slogan  is  "  Elsass-Lothringen  fiir  die  Elsass-Lothringerf" 
is  the  natural  result  of  the  peculiar  history  of  the  coun- 
try. It  has  found  expression,  explicitly  or  imphcitly, 
in  the  program  of  all  the  parties  represented  in  the 
Strasburg  Diet  and  the  Reichstag.  It  has  echoed  in 
every  tone  of  the  provincial  press  and  in  private  con- 
versation. It  is,  if  one  likes,  a  selfish  policy,  but  it  is 
there.  The  attitude  of  the  intelligent  Alsatian  has  been 
simply  this:  "We  value  the  union  with  the  empire  on 
account  of  the  solid  benefits  which  the  empire  brings 
us ;  and  so  long  as  it  continues  to  enrich  us  by  trade  in 
our  commodities  and  by  building  up  our  cities  and 
factories,  we  are  walling  to  do  for  it  not  only  what  ne- 
cessity demands,  but  to  the  limit  to  which  self-interest 
will  permit  us  to  go.  But  for  Germany  as  the  bearer 
of  the  Germanic  idea,  for  Germany  overseas,  for  Ger- 
many as  the  romantic  heir  of  the  mediaeval  empire,  — 
for  all  of  that  we  have  no  sympathy.  That  for  which 
we  do  stand  ready  to  do  and  die  is  Alsace-Lorraine." 

As  events  early  in  the  European  war  showed,  the  idea 
long  entertained  in  certain  French  quarters  that  the 


232     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

people  of  the  provinces  would  raise  a  fire  in  the  rear 
of  a  German  army  invading  France  was  a  dangerous 
illusion.  The  hope  of  treachery  beside  the  hearthstone 
of  an  enemy  or  a  rival  is  a  dearly  cherished  dream  among 
chauvinists  and  demagogues  of  every  nation.  Russian 
papers  talked  fondly  of  the  rise  of  the  Ruthenians  in 
Bukowina  and  the  Poles  in  Gahcia  in  the  event  of  a  war 
with  Austria-Hungary.  Foreign  enemies  of  Britain  have 
counted  in  vain  on  the  effective  sympathy  of  the  Irish ; 
and  Spanish  journals  at  the  opening  of  the  Cuban  war 
asserted  confidently  that  the  firing  of  the  first  gun  would 
bring  the  Southern  states  into  rebellion  in  a  renewed 
endeavor  to  realize  the  dream  of  secession !  The  habits 
and  discipHne  of  forty  years  taught  the  people  of 
Alsace-Lorraine  to  look  upon  the  union  with  the  German 
empire,  in  spite  of  rebelhon  at  the  ruthless  "Prussian" 
system,  as  permanent  and  on  the  whole  productive  of 
great  advantages.  And  while  there  is  no  denying  that 
there  are  many  families  in  which  the  traditions  of  French 
culture  have  been  well  preserved,  much  of  the  demand 
for  the  return  of  French  instruction  in  the  elementary 
schools  which  occurred  in  all  the  party  programs  (none 
mentioned  the  necessity  for  instruction  in  German!) 
and  much  of  the  club  enthusiasm  for  the  French  language 
and  French  history  was  merely  pose  for  effect  on  the 
"  grand  stand."  A  sentimental  devotion  to  a  lest  cause 
is  beautiful,  but  it  is  unfortunately  all  too  ready  for  use 
as  a  weapon  for  demagogues.  And  of  demagogues 
Alsace-Lorraine  has  had  more  than  its  share.  Certain 
leaders  were  in  the  habit  of  making  yearly  pilgrimages 
to  Paris,  where  they  filled  the  ears  of  the  Paris  journalists 
with  the  kind  of  talk  about  the  devotion  of  the  lost 
provinces  to  France  that  delighted  patriotic  French 
readers  and  brought  the  advertising  that  was  a  political 
asset  in  Metz  and  Strasburg.  In  191 2  the  Reichstag 
leader,  Wetterle,  made  a  sort  of  triumphal  tovi  through 
the  eastern  provinces  of  France,  expressing  himself  to 


THE   CONQUERED   PROVINCES  233 

delighted  French  reporters  in  a  way  that  might  have 
been  regarded  as  highly  treasonable. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  regermanization  of  Alsace  is 
fairly  complete.  The  two  centuries  of  French  influence 
had  little  effect  on  the  peasant  farmer,  who  remained 
through  it  all  much  the  same  as  his  cousin  of  the  Baden 
hills  across  the  Rhine.  The  maid  of  Strasburg  or 
Miilhausen  is  still  proud  to  say  her  Mon  Dieu !  or  Ca 
va  satis  dire!  when  togged  out  in  her  Sunday  afternoon 
finery,  and  the  village  shopkeeper,  chattering  his  native 
Allemanian  with  his  customers,  will  still  address  the 
stranger  with  Pardon,  m'seu!  All  of  this  is  nothing 
more  than  the  faint  echo  of  a  tradition.  The  peasant 
and  factory  worker,  so  far  as  the  latter  is  not  a  Socialist, 
have  been  poHtically  under  the  control  of  the  ultra- 
montane leaders  :  as  a  class  they  have  been  as  prosperous 
as  in  Westphalia  or  the  Palatinate  and  seemingly  as  con- 
tented with  German  rule.  Even  around  Metz,  where 
the  population  was  never  in  recent  centuries,  at  least, 
German,  and  where  the  boundary  line,  drawn  in  1871, 
sundering  parish  from  parish  put  members  of  the  same 
family  on  opposite  sides,  there  seems  to  have  been  httle 
popular  discontent  among  the  lower  classes,  except  with 
the  red  tape  of  tariff  restrictions.  Indeed,  the  traveller 
along  the  road  which  leads  from  Mars  le  Tour  to  Grave- 
lotte  or  from  St.  Privat  to  Metz  seems  to  notice  some- 
thing which  has  become  Germanic  in  the  very  landscape 
itself,  a  trim  and  ordered  beauty  which  is  not  apparent 
westward  on  the  upland  toward  Conflans  or  higher  up 
the  Moselle  toward  Nancy.  The  white  kilometre  stones, 
the  well-pruned  fruit  trees,  something  in  the  very  air  of 
the  trim  fields  even  above  Thionville  testifies  to  the 
disciphning  and  ordering  hand  of  German  administration 
and  schooling. 


CHAPTER  XII 

The  Polish  Question 

In  the  whole  history  of  the  struggle  of  modern  na- 
tionalities there  is  probably  no  chapter  more  pathetic 
than  that  which  deals  with  the  Polish  people.  Cer- 
tainly none  in  modern  times  has  been  used  so  often  to 
point  a  moral  and  adorn  a  tale.  It  tells  of  a  state  which 
was  destroyed  through  its  own  incapacity  for  existence 
and  of  a  people  which  has  risen  slowly  through  fiery 
trials  out  of  the  ruins  of  its  past  to  become  a  nationality, 
fired  with  a  strong  sense  of  national  unity,  yet  seemingly 
without  the  possibility  of  becoming  again  a  state.  Ever 
since  the  abrupt  end  of  the  Polish  oligarchical  republic, 
through  the  three  divisions  of  1772,  1793  and  1795,  the 
tragic  fate  of  the  Poles  has  been  a  favorite  theme  for 
historical  analysis  and  poetic  lament.  The  jealousy  of 
the  aristocracy,  the  incompetence  of  oligarchical  gov- 
ernment, the  venality  of  the  Polish  parliament,  the  lack 
of  a  middle  class,  the  debasement  of  the  peasantry  by 
the  great  landholders,  —  all  have  been  fruitful  themes 
for  those  who  would  justify  the  ways  of  history  to  man 
and  explain  why  the  decades  which  brought  enlighten- 
ment and  social  and  poKtical  enfranchisement  to  so 
much  of  Europe  should  have  sealed  the  fate  of  Poland 
and  divided  out  among  the  predatory  powers  of  Europe 
a  people  that  had  won  so  many  victories  for  the  defense 
of  race  and  Christianity. 

No  wonder  that  the  sympathy  of  the  earlier  decades 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  men  were  still  not  too 
blase  to  thrill  over  the  rights  of  man,  went  out  to  this 

234 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  235 

race.  The  lost  nation  struggling  nobly  under  the  iron 
heel  of  Russia,  Austria  and  Prussia  stood  only  second  to 
Greece  in  the  hearts  of  the  liberty  lovers  of  the  age  of 
Byron.  Poets  like  Musset  and  Halleck  sang  of  its 
wrongs.  With  the  abortive  revolt  of  the  Russian  Poles 
in  1 83 1,  a  swarm  of  refugees,  some  of  them  men  of  great 
personal  charm  and  worth,  fled  to  Switzerland,  France 
and  England;  and  the  "noble  Pole"  made  his  entrance 
into  Kterature  as  the  representative  of  the  highest  per- 
sonal culture  pursued  by  brute  force,  the  patriotic  son 
of  a  noble  race,  compelled  by  a  despotic  conqueror  to 
"show  his  miseries  in  distant  lands."  Many  of  these 
wanderers  brought  with  them,  to  be  sure,  a  certain 
Ostro-European  lack  of  social  refinement  that  found  its 
picture  in  Heinrich  Heine's  sarcastic  fling  at  the 

"  Zwei  Polen  aus  dcr  Polackei,  —  " 

But  the  "noble  Pole"  had  possessed  himself  of  the  stage 
in  the  days  of  reaction  that  prepared  the  way  for  the 
revolution  of  1848,  and  our  grandfathers  and  grand- 
mothers wept  over  Jane  Porter's  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw 
with  the  enthusiasm  of  those  to  whom  the  preamble  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  still  a  religion. 

This  enthusiasm  for  the  rights  of  down-trodden  peoples 
expressed  itself  nowhere  more  strongly  than  in  Ger- 
many, and  nowhere  did  the  Poles  in  the  first  half  of  the 
last  century  enjoy  greater  sympathy.  Graf  von  Platen's 
Songs  of  the  Poles  are  the  finest  expression  of  feeling 
for  a  manacled  people  in  the  German  language.  The 
suppression  of  the  Warsaw  revolt  in  1831  filled  the 
German  cities  also  with  Polish  refugees,  and  these  found 
ready  sympathy  among  a  people  who  were  themselves 
writhing  under  the  iron  heel  of  the  Metternich  reaction. 
A  conspiracy  among  the  Prussian  Poles  in  Posen  in  1846 
and  their  part  in  the  soon  strangled  but  bloody  revolu- 
tion two  years  later  in  Prussia  brought  to  their  cause 
renewed  sympathy  from  liberal  hearts.      Forty  years 


236    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

later  Bismarck  recalled  in  the  Reichstag  how  he  had  seen 
the  Polish  leader  Mieroslawski,  only  recently  pardoned 
for  high  treason,  ecKpse  the  Prussian  sovereign  as  the 
real  hero  of  the  day  in  the  famous  procession  which  bore 
to  their  graves  in  the  cemetery  in  Berlin  the  victims  of 
the  fight  on  the  barricades.  In  popular  assemblies,  and 
in  the  abortive  Frankfort  Parliament,  which  sought  to 
bring  about  German  unity  in  those  stormy  days,  the 
rights  of  the  Poles,  who  had  been  attached  to  Prussia 
against  their  will,  were  the  subject  of  warm  sympathy 
and  prolonged  and  agitated  debate. 

The  rights  of  the  Poles  were  a  part  of  the  gospel  of 
the  rights  of  man,  and  in  those  days  Prussian  liberalism 
had  more  sympathy  for  this  and  the  other  grand  doctrines 
of  the  eighteenth  century  than  it  had  for  the  brute  force 
which  must  be  employed  toward  the  weak  as  well  as  the 
strong  if  Prussia  was  to  fulfil  her  mission  as  the  organizer 
of  German  unity.  The  old  tradition  of  sympathy  for 
Polish  wrongs  was  still  strong  in  liberal  circles  in  1863 
when  Bismarck,  then  ruling  in  despite  of  a  Liberal 
majority,  combined  with  Russia  to  crush  another  Polish 
revolt,  which  had  broken  out  in  Warsaw  and  threatened 
to  extend  to  Posen.  For  months  the  Iron  Chancellor 
was  forced  to  wage  not  only  a  diplomatic  contest  with 
Austria,  France  and  England  over  his  anti-Polish  con- 
vention with  the  Czar,  but  also  a  bitter  parliamentary 
war.  Hatred  of  the  Junker  minister  and  sympathy 
with  the  Poles  was  still  too  strong,  and  the  political 
sense  still  too  undeveloped  among  Prussian  Liberals 
for  them  to  see  that  German  rule  in  the  Polish  provinces 
was  a  necessity  of  life  to  the  Fatherland.  This  idea 
grew  only  slowly  after  the  realization  of  German  unity 
and  did  not  take  complete  possession  of  the  patriotic 
consciousness  until  the  Greater  Polish  movement  had 
thoroughly  established  itself  in  the  eastern  marches. 

In  order  to  understand  the  full  difficulty  of  the  prob- 
lem which  has  confronted  Germany  on  the  eastern  border 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  237 

it  is  necessary  to  look  somewhat  far  afield.  One  must 
remember  that  nearly  one-half  of  the  Germans  now  living 
in  Germany  dwell  on  territory  which  one  thousand 
years  ago  was  not  inhabited  by  Germans  at  all,  and 
that  the  present  struggle  for  predominance  in  the  Polish 
provinces  is  but  a  chapter  in  the  reflux  of  Germans  tow- 
ards the  east  that  has  been  going  on  since  the  time  of 
Charlemagne.  In  the  days  of  that  monarch  scarcely 
any  Germans  were  to  be  found  east  of  a  line  drawn  from 
Kiel  on  the  southwest  comer  of  the  Baltic  to  Linz  on  the 
Danube  and  on  down  to  the  Puster  Valley  in  Tyrol. 
Both  capitals  of  the  German-ruled  empires,  Berhn  and 
Vienna,  stand  upon  land  which  was  at  that  time  Slavic 
territory.  Slavic  still  are  the  names  of  the  rivers,  cities 
and  villages  to  the  east  of  the  Elbe  and  the  Saale. 

The  invasion  by  which  the  western  Slavic  tribes  were 
conquered  and  absorbed  was,  in  part  at  least,  a  peaceful 
one.  Under  the  aggressive  Saxon  nobility  the  Germans 
won  the  lands  immediately  east  of  the  Elbe  and  Saale 
from  the  Wends  and  Sorbs,  and  western  German  peas- 
ants were  introduced  as  farmers  and  with  the  rise  of  the 
handicrafts,  as  artisans  and  merchants.  The  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries  saw  the  height  of  this  coloniza- 
tion :  before  the  latter  had  come  to  an  end  the  Germanic 
wave  had  gathered  great  impetus  through  the  coming 
of  the  Teutonic  Knights,  who  at  the  invitation  of  a 
Polish  duke  diverted  their  sacred  and  profane  zeal,  which 
no  longer  found  outlet  in  the  crusades  to  Palestine,  into 
a  conquest  of  the  heathen  Prussians  in  the  Baltic  lands 
between  Danzig  and  Riga.  German  historians  claim 
that  the  conquest  by  the  Teutonic  Knights  was  less  one 
of  the  sword  than  of  the  plough ;  in  their  train,  and  by 
no  means  merely  to  the  region  which  they  administered 
as  an  ecclesiastical  state,  came  not  only  farmers  but 
artisans  and  traders  as  well,  who  as  representatives  of  a 
higher  culture  established  markets  in  the  Pohsh  lands 
and  filtered  through  them  far  to  the  eastward.     German 


238     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

energy  founded  the  cities  not  only  in  Poland  but  in 
Lithuania  and  Livonia  as  well.  In  the  fifteenth  century 
German  law  prevailed  and  German  trade  flourished  in 
every  city  between  the  Carpathians  and  the  Baltic  and 
German  commerce  extended  its  fingers  far  to  the  east 
into  the  heart  of  Russia. 

The  bonds  which  held  the  Ordensland,  as  East  Prussia 
was  then  called,  to  the  German  empire  were  moral 
rather  than  political  bonds ;  and  the  weakening  of  the 
mediaeval  empire  brought  a  corresponding  strengthening 
of  the  Polish  state,  which  had  built  itself  up  along  the 
marches  of  Brandenburg  and  Pomerania.  At  Tannen- 
berg  in  the  East  Prussian  Hockerland  in  1410  the  black- 
white  banner  of  the  Teutonic  Knights  sank  before  the 
fiery  onslaughts  of  Jagiello  and  his  Slavic  hordes,  and 
the  peace  of  Thorn  half  a  century  later  brought  all  the 
lands  watered  by  the  Vistula  and  the  Warthe  under 
Polish  overlordship.  The  PoKsh  state  at  the  time  of 
its  greatest  extent  stretched  from  the  Silesian  moimtains 
to  the  Baltic,  and  marching  with  the  present  Prussian 
provinces  of  Silesia,  Brandenburg  and  PomerarJa,  threw 
its  boundaries  far  to  the  eastward  over  many  Russian 
and  Lithuanian  provinces.  Within  its  confines  the  Polish 
race  was  far  from  forming  a  majority,  but  with  the 
aggressiveness  of  a  lordly  people  ruled  with  severity 
over  Russian,  Lithuanian,  German  and  Jew.  The 
Germans  as  traders  and  artisans  enjoyed  a  certain  pro- 
tection, but  the  German-built  cities  had  much  to  suffer 
from  the  greed  of  the  Polish  nobility. 

To  these  racial  differences  the  Reformation  brought  a 
great  religious  contrast.  The  Germans  of  the  North- 
east became  for  the  most  part  Lutheran  and  Protestant 
under  the  influence  of  northern  Germany ;  the  Poles 
remained  and  remain  overwhelmingly  Roman  Catholic. 
The  Counter-reformation  under  the  leadership  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus  fanned  the  rehgious  hatred  to  white  heat, 
and  the  lot  of  the  Polish-ruled  Germans  through  two  cen- 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  239 

turies  was  a  hard  one,  made  worse  by  the  growing  anarchy 
which  accompanied  the  disintegration  of  the  Polish  state. 

The  end  of  it  all  came  with  the  partition  between  Russia, 
Austria  and  Prussia,  just  at  a  time  when  the  age  of  en- 
lightenment seemed  about  to  bring  a  modern  form  of 
government  to  Poland.  In  the  meantime  East  Prussia 
had  fallen  to  the  Hohenzollerns  and  with  the  corona- 
tion of  the  first  Prussian  king  at  Konigsberg  in  1701 
became  the  name-giver  of  the  new  Prussian  monarchy, 
which  came  forth  from  the  chrysalis  of  Brandenburg 
and  its  dependencies.  Brandenburg-Prussia's  rulers, 
from  the  Great  Elector  to  Frederick  the  Great,  recog- 
nized the  value  of  the  territory  to  the  east  of  the  Oder 
and  the  Vistula,  and  brought  into  it  crowds  of  colonists 
from  all  parts  of  Germany  and  many  sections  of  the 
Romance  world  as  farmers  and  villagers,  to  reclaim  waste 
land  and  strengthen  the  German  element  from  the  Baltic 
southward.  Especially  the  builder-statesman  Frederick 
the  Great  found  much  to  do  in  the  lands  which  fell  to  his 
share  as  booty  from  the  first  partition  of  Poland.  In  a 
memorable  account  of  his  first  tour  of  inspection  of  the 
annexed  pro\dnces  he  finds  the  economic  condition  of  the 
country  deplorable,  "the  inhabitants  as  lacking  in 
civilization  as  the  Iroquois  of  Canada."  For  years  he 
devoted  a  great  part  of  his  energy  and  strained  the  re- 
sources of  his  state  in  draining  swamps  and  restraining 
rivers  in  the  province  of  West  Prussia,  and  in  bringing 
in  and  settling  thousands  of  German  colonists  in  every 
section  of  the  eastern  marches. 

In  the  years  which  intervened  between  the  end  of  the 
Polish  state  in  1795  and  the  Congress  of  Vienna  in  181 5, 
Napoleon  had  infused  new  hope  into  the  hearts  of  Pohsh 
patriots.  By  his  erection  of  the  Grand  Duchy  of  War- 
saw and  his  clever  appeals  to  the  patriotism  of  the  Poles, 
their  leaders  caught  a  new  hope  of  Polish  freedom  and 
unity.  This  hope  was  stifled  by  the  reactionary  hands 
of  the  diplomats  at  Vienna.     When  the  Congress  arose 


240    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

from  its  complicated  labors,  it  had  greatly  reduced 
Prussia's  share  from  the  three  divisions  of  Poland  in 
favor  of  Russia,  lea\'ing  the  German  kingdom  as  a  net 
result  of  the  transaction  the  two  provinces  of  Posen 
and  West  Prussia,  including,  roughly  estimated,  350,000 
Germans  and  450,000  Poles.  The  PoHsh  patriots  who  be- 
sieged the  Congress  with  petitions  for  a  resurrection  of 
their  nation  were  dismissed  with  the  promise  that  the  in- 
terests of  their  nationality  would  be  safeguarded  in  the 
administration,  a  promise  which  was  repeated  in  the  mani- 
festo issued  by  Frederick  William  III  on  taking  posses- 
sion of  the  two  provinces.  Such  promises,  which  are 
made  only  to  soothe  the  feelings  of  a  party  whose  claims 
cannot  be  further  considered,  usually  mean  only  so 
much  as  the  magnanimity  of  the  one  is  willing  to  give 
or  the  power  and  insistence  of  the  other  to  enforce. 
In  the  case  of  the  Poles  in  Prussia  an  effort  seems  to 
have  been  made  to  carry  out  in  spirit  what  had  been 
promised  them. 

Since  18 15  Prussia's  policy  in  these  provinces  has 
varied  between  the  widest  extremes  of  conciliation  and 
repression.  At  first  every  effort  was  made  to  make  of 
the  Poles  patriotic  subjects  of  Prussia.  Russia  was  the 
much-feared  neighbor;  and  the  Poles  hated  Russia  at 
the  time  much  more  than  they  did  either  of  the  other 
predatory  powers.  It  was  thought  that  they  might  be 
won  by  kindness  to  become  a  strong  bulwark  against 
Muscovite  aggressions  on  the  eastern  boundary.  The 
administration  of  Posen  was  di\'ided  between  the  Ger- 
mans and  the  Poles,  Polish  was  accorded  full  rights  in 
the  schools,  and  an  effort  was  made  to  win  the  PoHsh 
aristocracy  for  the  Prussian  civil  service.  The  years 
1830-31  brought  a  sudden  awakening.  A  revolt  among 
the  Russian  Poles  broke  out  in  Warsaw,  and  imme- 
diately it  became  apparent  that  a  widespread  conspiracy 
existed  and  that  a  serious  Polish  problem  threatened  the 
three  powers.    An  enthusiasm  for  the  resurrection  of 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  241 

Poland  as  it  existed  before  1772  had  taken  possession 
of  wide  circles  of  the  nobility  and  clergy ;  and  Prussia 
had  reason  to  fear  that  the  contagion  had  already  crossed 
her  borders.  The  Prussian  statesmen  abandoned  the 
policy  of  conciliation  and  again  took  up  the  work  of 
germanization  through  the  colonizing  of  loyal  subjects. 
The  Poles  were  evicted  from  offices  of  administration  in 
the  provinces,  the  crown  granted  money  for  bringing  in 
German  settlers,  and  until  the  accession  of  Frederick 
William  IV  in  1840  the  Polish  national  propaganda  was 
closely  watched  and  sternly  repressed.  With  the  ro- 
manticism belonging  to  his  character  this  monarch  took 
up  again  the  work  of  conciliating  the  Poles.  Why  should 
not  the  race  which  furnished  such  good  citizens  in  upper 
Silesia  go  through  a  similar  development  in  West  Prussia 
and  Posen?  Once  more  the  government  sought  to 
win  over  the  nobility,  once  more  administrative  offices 
in  the  provinces  were  open  to  ambitious  young  Poles. 
This  time  the  answer  was  the  Polish  conspiracy  of  1846 
in  Posen  and  the  uprising  two  years  later  in  the  same 
province,  when  the  Polish  leaders  joined  hands  with  the 
radical  leaders  of  BerUn.  Even  this  did  not  lead  the 
Prussian  administration  to  any  vigorous  measures  of 
repression.  The  growing  hatred  of  the  Poles  for  the 
Germans  on  the  eastern  marches  was  watched  with 
fear ;  but  even  Bismarck  believed  PoHsh  discontent  con- 
fined to  the  nobiHty,  and  nobody  foresaw  the  power  of 
the  popular  movement  which  still  lay  buried  in  the 
Polish  folk-soul. 

The  revolt  in  Russian  Poland  in  1863  aroused  Bis- 
marck to  the  most  decisive  action  to  prevent  its  spread- 
ing to  the  Prussian  provinces ;  but  the  mighty  problems 
which  then  lay  before  him,  —  the  army  reorganization, 
the  Schleswig-Holstein  question  with  the  elimination  of 
Austria  from  the  German  confederacy,  and  finally  the 
war  with  France,  gave  Prussia's  statesman  enough  and 
more  than  enough  to  do  without  the  relatively  unim- 


242     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

portant  Polish  question.  The  KuUiirkampf  began  in  the 
Polish  provinces  and  was  directed  there  as  much  against 
the  nationahst  propaganda  of  the  Polish  clergy  as  against 
the  practices  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church ;  but  it  was 
not  until  the  new  empire  had  begun  to  see  light  through 
its  greatest  international  difficulties  and  economic  prob- 
lems that  Bismarck  seriously  laid  hand  upon  the  Polish 
situation.  In  the  meantime,  however,  the  folk-soul  of 
the  Polish  inhabitants  of  the  eastern  provinces  had  be- 
come thoroughly  awakened,  and  opposed  to  the  Prussian 
administration  a  spirit  and  an  organization  which  not 
even  the  most  aggressive  measures  were  able  to  hold  in 
check.  Up  to  the  time  of  the  formation  of  the  empire 
in  187 1  the  political  opposition  of  the  Poles  was  a  matter 
of  the  large  landholders,  who  with  the  clergy  had  main- 
tained the  fight  for  the  national  cause.  The  peasantry 
were  mere  tools  in  the  hands  of  their  spiritual  and  tem- 
poral leaders.  Germans  and  Jews  held  the  trade  and 
slow-budding  industry  of  the  provinces.  After  187 1, 
however,  the  Poles  began  the  erection  of  a  social  and 
economic  system  which  was  in  three  decades  to  make 
them  independent  of  their  German  neighbors  and  to 
mobilize  every  energy  in  defense  of  the  national  cause. 
Much  earlier,  indeed,  gifted  spirits  am.ong  the  Poles 
had  recognized  the  necessity  for  a  long  advance  in  culture 
before  their  people  could  hope  to  make  a  successful  fight 
against  the  Germans  for  control  of  the  provinces.  "Not 
until  we  Poles  shall  have  become  better,  more  cultured 
and  richer  than  the  Germans  will  the  dominion  be  ours," 
declared  Count  Raczynski  to  his  compatriots  in  Posen 
in  1842,  and  these  words  may  be  regarded  as  the  slogan 
of  the  Polish  advance  since  that  time.  Out  of  this 
spirit  arose  the  Marcinkowski  Association  in  1842,  the 
first  and  the  greatest  of  the  numerous  organizations  for 
the  creation  of  a  Polish  culture.  By  the  establishment 
of  scholarships  for  the  training  of  bright  young  men  for 
the  "free"  professions,  and  later  for  the  trades,  and 


THE   POLISH   QUESTION  243 

by  the  furtherance  of  a  national  press  and  of  Polish 
literature,  it  took  the  lead  in  the  building  up  of  a  trained 
middle  class  with  a  strongly  nationahst  spirit.  Every 
village  with  even  a  fair  minority  of  Poles  came  to  have 
its  Polish  doctor  and  lawyer  and  the  lesser  cities  their 
Polish  paper,  and  an  independent  middle  class  arose 
which  quickly  wrested  political  leadership  from  the 
landed  gentry  and  shared  with  the  clergy  the  duty  of 
stirring  the  peasantry  to  vigorous  national  feeling.  The 
movement  soon  jumped  the  confines  of  Posen  and  West 
Prussia.  Societies  similar  to  the  Marcinkowski  Associa- 
tion were  formed  in  East  Prussia,  upper  Silesia  and  even 
Pomerania,  wherever  pure  Slavic  blood  flowed,  assist- 
ing bright  young  men  and  girls  to  a  higher  education 
for  the  leadership  of  their  people. 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  intellectual  rise  of  the  German 
Poles  went  their  rise  in  the  economic  field.  Here  the 
early  development  of  the  empire  brought  them  golden 
opportunity  in  two  ways.  The  industrial  prosperity  of 
the  West  had  already  begun  its  forward  movement 
and  now  went  ahead  by  leaps  and  bounds.  As  a  result 
of  the  better  conditions  of  fife  prevaiHng  in  these  districts, 
there  began  at  first  slowly,  and  then  gathering  momentum 
until  it  took  on  the  form  of  a  mighty  natural  phenomenon, 
the  migration  of  German  labor  from  the  eastern  marches 
to  the  western  cities.  Men  who  had  been  soldiers  in  the 
war  wdth  France  or  who  had  served  their  military  appren- 
ticeship in  the  West  followed  the  call  of  greater  oppor- 
tunity and  a  higher  culture  away  from  their  native  East, 
with  its  antiquated  semi-feudal  labor  laws.  The  result 
was  that  the  landholders  of  the  eastern  marches  very 
soon  began  to  feel  the  need  of  farm  labor.  They  them- 
selves had  in  the  sixties  and  early  seventies,  riding  upon 
the  wave  of  agricultural  prosperity  of  that  time,  bought 
themselves  land-poor  from  the  bankrupt  Polish  aris- 
tocracy ;  now  besides  growing  competition  from  abroad 
and  increasing  difliculty  in  securing  loans,  they  found 


244    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

themselves  facing  a  severe  labor  problem.  It  is  cer- 
tainly no  reflection  on  their  German  patriotism  that  they 
met  the  issue  as  best  they  might  by  the  importation  of 
seasonal  workers  on  an  ever-increasing  scale  from  Russian 
Poland  and  Galida.  Coming  at  first  as  harvest  workers 
and  returning  each  autumn  to  their  homes,  these  sons 
and  daughters  of  the  poverty-stricken  East  crossed  the 
borders  each  year  in  ever-growing  numbers ;  and  before 
the  new  empire  was  a  dozen  years  old,  they  had  fi.lled 
the  labor  sheds  of  the  eastern  marches  of  Prussia  and  had 
begun  to  make  themselves  fast  as  farm  laborers  and  even 
as  permanent  residents  in  the  cities,  crowding  unpleas- 
antly those  workers  of  German  birth  who  had  clung  to 
the  soil.  Sdchsenganger  they  were  called,  and  they  began 
to  be  a  familiar  sight  in  the  harvest  fields  west  of  the 
Oder  and  the  Elbe  and  even  penetrated  into  the  agri- 
cultural districts  of  Westphalia  and  the  Rhineland.  It 
was  plain  that  a  genuine  migration  had  begun,  like  the 
invasion  of  the  early  Christian  centuries,  when  Slavic 
hordes  occupied  the  lands  left  vacant  by  the  Bur- 
gundians  and  Vandals,  Bavarians  and  Swabians,  who 
had  followed  the  lure  of  the  West. 

The  Prussian  government  took  alarm,  and  in  1885 
Bismarck  shipped  back  to  their  earlier  homes  in  Russia 
and  Austria  some  thirty  thousand  of  these  unwelcome 
invaders.  Stringent  regulations  were  adopted  governing 
the  importation  of  labor  from  the  east  and  fixing  definitely 
the  period  of  stay  in  Prussia,  so  that  while  they  still  came, 
several  hundred  thousand  yearly,  as  seasonal  workers, 
they  were  carefully  watched  to  prevent  their  spending 
the  winter  in  Germany  or  by  any  means  acquiring  a 
residence.  In  cultivation  and  harvest  times  one  might 
see  them  working  in  the  fields,  from  the  farthest  eastern 
border  with  diminishing  numbers  as  far  as  Hanover  and 
Westphalia,  long  picturesque  lines  of  bowed  figures 
among  the  wheat  shocks  or  potato  rows.  On  Sundays 
in  coloredj  neckerchief  and  quaint  garb  they  crowded 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  245 

the  Roman  Catholic  churches  in  even  the  most  solidly 
Protestant  sections  of  Saxony  and  Mecklenburg,  un- 
developed material  of  a  great  Sla\ic  culture  yet  to  come. 
To  the  patriotic  German  they  have  been  a  hard  necessity 
for  his  agricultural  prosperity,  for  even  under  the  severe 
restrictions  governing  them,  they  have  given  considerable 
moral  support  to  the  PoHsh  propaganda.  One  East 
Prussian  rural  chamber  at  the  beginning  of  the  new 
century  called  on  the  government  to  import  African 
natives  as  less  dangerous  to  the  German  future  ! 

The  other  stimulus  to  the  Polish  cause  from  the  form- 
ing of  the  German  empire  was  the  rise  of  Pan-Slavism. 
This  movement  which  sprang  up  in  opposition  to  a 
united  and  all  too  prosperous  Germanism,  immediately 
caught  the  Poles  and  was  transformed  by  them  into  a 
Greater  PoHsh  movement.  Dreams  of  a  renaissance  of 
the  ancient  PoUsh  state  in  its  widest  extent  began  to 
transfer  themselves  from  the  minds  of  the  elite  among 
the  nobility  and  clergy  and  to  become  the  common 
property  of  the  entire  people.  The  growth  of  this  idea 
went  hand  in  hand  with  the  growth  of  Polish  culture: 
its  bearers  were  not  merely  the  nobihty  and  clergy  but 
the  newly  created  middle  class  as  well.  Under  the 
stimulus  of  this  movement  the  new  Polish  press  grew  up. 
In  Thorn  and  Graudenz  and  Danzig  and  Stargard,  as 
well  as  in  the  cities  of  the  province  of  Posen,  Polish 
newspapers  arose  and  soon  found  wide  circulation.  After 
1890  these  became  the  leaders  of  the  radical  wing  of  the 
Greater  Poland  party,  carrying  on  a  restless  propaganda 
not  only  by  razor-edged  articles  of  agitation,  but  also 
by  the  issuance  of  reading  books  on  Polish  history  and 
literature  and  Polish  song  books,  and  by  constant  appeals 
to  the  national  idea.  The  hatred  which  had  been  slowly 
growing  up  between  Pole  and  German  in  the  eastern 
marches  for  a  hundred  years  was  fanned  into  a  bright 
flame  by  this  propaganda.  Every  Pole  who  could  read 
began  to  feel  himself  a  warrior  and  if  necessary  a  martyr 


246    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

for  the  Greater  Polish  cause.  A  new  feeling  of  solidarity 
bound  the  long  sundered  fragments  of  the  nation  to- 
gether for  an  aggressive  forward  movement. 

The  leadership  of  this  movement  remained,  however, 
in  the  hands  of  the  clergy.  Ninety  per  cent  of  the 
German  Poles  are  Roman  CathoUcs.  A  remnant  of  the 
ancient  Polish  kingdom  still  exists  in  the  fact  that  the 
Archbishop  of  Breslau  includes  within  his  diocese 
both  German  and  Austrian  territory.  The  Polish 
clergy  enjoy  a  respect  and  obedience  from  their  parish- 
ioners which  gives  them  enormous  powers  of  organization 
and  control.  The  influence  of  the  clergy  in  the  Greater 
Polish  cause  was  first  observed  in  the  denationalization 
of  German  CathoKcs  living  in  Polish  neighborhoods,  a 
movement  which  went  on  unchecked  for  many  years. 
Under  the  ministrations  of  the  Polish  priest  and  under 
the  pressure  of  his  Polish  neighbors  and  coreligionists 
the  German  farmer  had  to  wage  a  determined  fight  to 
retain  his  nationality,  and  in  many  cases  gTadually 
became  Polish  in  manners  and  ideas  and  even  in  language 
and  in  name.  In  1884  there  were  759  children  in  the 
elementary  schools  of  the  province  of  Posen  bearing 
German  names  in  whose  families  only  Polish  was  spoken. 
Thus  the  descendants  of  many  a  colonist  of  Frederick 
the  Great  speak  only  Polish  and  answer  to  a  name  in 
which  the  German  vowels  have  given  place  to  Slavic 
consonants. 

A  general  Polonizing  of  the  eastern  marches  seemed 
on  the  way  when  in  1886  Bismarck  went  before  the 
Landtag  with  propositions  for  strengthening  the  German 
element.  How  far  the  process  had  already  gone  in  the 
province  of  Posen  was  shown  by  figures  cited  in  that 
year.  In  the  twenty-five  years  preceding  the  Poles  had 
increased  by  two  hundred  thousand  while  the  German 
growth  was  only  four  thousand.  How  much  of  this 
tremendous  growth  of  the  PoUsh  element  was  due  to  an 
aggressive   Polonizing   of    the    Germans    could   not   be 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  247 

determined.  Once  thoroughly  convinced  of  the  danger, 
the  Prussian  government  went  vigorously  to  work  to 
meet  it,  employing  the  same  method  which  had  brought 
such  effective  results  since  the  days  of  the  Teutonic 
Knights,  the  settlement  of  peasant  farmers  into  the  dis- 
tricts where  a  massing  of  Poles  seemed  imminent.  For 
this  purpose  the  Royal  Colonization  Commission  was 
formed,  with  an  initial  appropriation  of  twenty-five 
million  dollars  for  the  purchase  of  land  in  the  provinces 
of  Posen  and  West  Prussia,  and  the  settlement  of  Ger- 
mans thereon.  The  work  of  the  Commission,  pushed 
vigorously  in  the  earher  years,  dragged  during  the 
Caprivi  regime  in  the  early  nineties,  when  the  govern- 
ment ogled  with  the  Poles  and  traded  conciliatory 
methods  in  the  eastern  provinces  for  parliamentary 
support  of  Caprivi's  military  bill.  After  that  the  Com- 
mission got  new  footing  and  went  forward  with  its  work 
with  an  energy  which  occasionally  flagged  in  the  face  of 
Polish  and  CathoHc  protests,  but  was  in  the  main  con- 
sistent. Its  work  was  most  urgently  furthered  in  the 
years  1902-08  under  the  administration  of  the  Chan- 
cellor Billow,  an  ardent  supporter  of  the  colonization 
policy.  In  spite  of  the  frenzied  opposition  of  the  Polish 
fraction,  which  has  counted  on  an  average  thirteen 
members  in  the  Prussian  Diet,  and  the  stern  disapproval 
of  the  Centre,  which  for  purposes  of  Catholic  solidarity 
has  made  common  cause  with  the  CathoHc  Poles,  further 
appropriations  were  voted  until  at  the  end  of  191 2  the 
Commission  had  disbursed  over  one  hundred  and  fifty 
million  dollars  and  settled  nearly  twenty  thousand 
German  families  in  the  two  provinces. 

The  ultimate  success  of  the  colonization  policy  was 
variously  judged.  It  is  true  that  the  greater  part  of 
the  land  purchased  came  from  German  owners,  less 
than  30  per  cent  having  been  acquired  by  the  Commis- 
sion from  Polish  owners;  true  also  that  much  of  this 
PoHsh  land  had  to  be  bought  at  a  high  figure  and  that 


248    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

at  least  a  part  of  the  purchase  money  was  used  by  the 
sellers  to  buy  still  greater  tracts  of  land  for  their  com- 
patriots in  the  other  eastern  provinces.  Certain  it  i3 
also  that  in  spite  of  the  work  of  the  Royal  Commission, 
the  Poles  have  in  recent  years  acquired  more  land  from 
the  Germans  in  the  two  provinces  than  the  Commission 
was  able  to  purchase  from  Poles  —  statistics  pubhshed 
for  the  years  1 896-1 908  put  the  net  winnings  of  the 
Poles  at  84,503  hectares.^  Later  figures  have  not  been 
pubhshed,  —  not  an  encouraging  circumstance,  —  but 
in  the  course  of  a  debate  in  the  Landtag  it  was  admitted 
by  the  government  that  the  Pohsh  net  gain  in  the  years 
1896-1911  was  over  100,000  hectares.  What  the  PoHsh 
purchases  amounted  to  in  the  other  eastern  provinces 
during  the  same  period  cannot  be  given  with  certainty ; 
such  statistics  as  are  available  show  that  the  PoHsh  gain 
in  land  there  was  even  more  rapid.  Thus  in  East  Prussia 
the  net  gain  from  1900  to  191 2  was  27,779  hectares;  in 
Silesia  the  net  winnings  of  the  Poles  1 906-11  were 
13,270  hectares,  and  in  three  "circles"  of  northeast 
Pomerania  in  the  same  period  1789  hectares.  Natu- 
rally the  Poles  opposed  to  the  work  of  the  Commission 
every  device  which  national  soHdarity  and  religious  zeal 
could  suggest.  The  Pole  who  sold  his  land  to  a  German 
must  be  prepared  to  face  the  anathema  of  the  village 
priest  and  the  boycott  of  his  PoHsh  neighbors.  The 
watchful  correspondent  of  the  nearest  Pohsh  paper 
reported  his  name  to  be  pubhshed  for  general  execration ; 
no  neighbor  would  lend  a  hand  or  horse  to  move  his  ef- 
fects, curses  and  perhaps  a  broken  head  awaited  his  visit 
to  the  village  tavern. 

On  the  other  hand,  many  of  those  students  best 
qualified  to  speak  —  and  among  them  must  be  included 
the  former  Chancellor  Biilow  —  beheve  that  the  work 
of  the  Royal  Commission  has  notably  strengthened  the 
German  cause  in  the  eastern  provinces.     Certainly  any 

^  A  hectare  is  2.471  acres. 


THE   POLISH  QUESTION  249 

movement  which  in  the  first  twenty-five  years  of  its 
existence  brought  into  the  eastern  marches  over  one 
hundred  thousand  Germans  and  settled  them  perma- 
nently as  small  farmers,  was  worth,  from  a  political 
and  military  standpoint,  many  times  the  outlay.  The 
settlers  must  in  the  main  be  possessed  of  some  small 
capital  for  the  equipment  of  their  farms,  and  their  coming 
has  brought  increased  wealth  to  certain  sections  both  in 
cattle  breeding  and  land  culture.  In  a  country  where 
so  much  of  the  land  is  held  in  large  estates  the  introduc- 
tion of  so  many  small  farmers  —  the  average  size  of  the 
Commission's  allotment  has  been  twelve  hectares  — 
could  not  but  be  of  great  social  and  economic  value. 
And  while  the  fight  between  the  Commission  and  the 
Poles  through  their  banks  for  the  possession  of  the  land 
artificially  inflated  land  values  in  certain  districts  of  the 
pro\dnces,  the  economic  rivalry  of  the  two  races  pro- 
moted the  general  prosperity  of  the  provinces  to  a 
marked  degree. 

One  necessary  but  unfortunate  result  of  the  coloniza- 
tion policy  was  the  fanning  of  the  hatred  between  Ger- 
mans and  Poles  in  the  eastern  marches  to  white  heat. 
To  this  feeling  another  circumstance  made  a  note- 
worthy contribution,  the  founding  in  1894  of  the  ''As- 
sociation of  the  Eastern  Marches,"  the  Deutscher  Ost- 
viarken  Verein.  The  impetus  for  this  organization  came 
from  the  gathering  of  a  number  of  Germans  from  Posen 
around  the  aged  Bismarck,  then  living  in  retirement  on 
his  Pomeranian  estates.  Under  the  ring  of  the  old 
Chancellor's  eloquence  the  Association  immediately 
began  a  vigorous  campaign  to  support  the  German  ele- 
ment in  the  East.  Its  local  chapters  covered  the  entire 
debatable  territory;  and  under  the  leadership  of  men 
of  great  influence  and  devotion  to  the  patriotic  cause  it 
watched  the  Polish  agitation  and  by  its  own  and  govern- 
mental means  sought  to  checkmate  it.  By  group  meet- 
ings and  by  its  annual  "day,"  held  in  one  of  the  large 


250     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

eastern  cities,  it  awakened  enthusiasm  and  strengthened 
weak  knees  in  the  Polish  districts.  It  published  a 
monthly,  The  Eastern  Marches,  issued  from  time  to  time 
historical  and  statistical  pamphlets,  organized  lectures, 
inspired  newspaper  articles  and  sought  in  every  way  to 
foster  German  culture  in  the  "fighting  district." 

Supported  by  this  and  other  patriotic  societies,  the 
government  received  from  the  Landtag  new  weapons 
for  fighting  the  Slavic  advance.  In  1904  the  right  to 
settle  permanently  in  the  disputed  territory  was  made 
dependent  on  the  approval  of  the  provincial  authorities, 
who  might  naturally  be  expected  to  exclude  Polish 
invaders.^  The  object  of  the  law,  however,  so  far  as  it 
related  to  the  acquisition  of  land,  was  largely  nullified 
by  the  ingenuity  of  the  PoHsh  "  parcellation  banks," 
which  bought  up  great  estates  and  sold  them  in  small 
lots  to  the  adjoining  Polish  proprietors.  This  move  and 
the  rising  price  of  land  were  met  by  the  *'  Expropriation 
Law  "  2  of  1908,  borrowed  from  the  British  procedure  in 
Ireland,  which  authorized  the  condemnation  of  land 
for  colonization  purposes.  Although  the  amount  which 
might  be  acquired  by  this  means  in  one  year  was  closely 
limited,  the  law  was  so  widely  condemned  as  "special 
legislation  "  that  no  attempt  was  made  to  put  it  in  force 
until  the  fall  of  191 2,  and  then  only  on  a  very  small  scale. 
A  paragraph  of  the  "  Association  Law  "  of  1907,  forbid- 
ding the  use  of  a  foreign  language  in  public  meetings,  was 
directly  aimed  at  the  Poles,  but  through  Liberal  opposi- 
tion it  was  so  greatly  modified  as  largely  to  fail  of  its 
purpose.  A  further  Unk  in  the  chain  which  the  Prussian 
lawgivers  sought  to  forge  across  the  Polish  advance  was 
the  "  Confirmation  Law  "  ^  of  1908,  which  authorized  the 
purchase  on  government  account  of  any  land  coming 
on  the  market  in  the  provinces  outside  of  the  two  most 
hotly  contested  (Posen  and  West  Prussia)  at  85  per  cent 

^  Ansiedlungs-Gesetz.  *  Entdgnungs-Cesetz. 

^  BefesHgungs-Gesetz. 


THE   POLISH  QUESTION  251 

of  the  assessed  value.  In  every  province  also  private  ef- 
forts seconded  the  government  through  the  organization 
of  societies  for  the  bringing  in  of  German  farmers  and 
the  succor  of  those  financially  involved,  for  the  importa- 
tion of  German  artisans  and  laborers  and  the  securing 
of  suitable  dwelHngs,  etc. 

To  these  measures  the  Poles  opposed  an  organization 
which  grew  more  soUd  each  year,  infused  with  an  energy 
that  knew  no  discouragement  and  a  national  patriotism 
that  shrank  at  no  sacrifice.  In  the  years  of  struggle 
the  influence  of  the  nobility,  always  inclined  to  conciha- 
tory  methods,  gave  place  to  the  control  by  a  radical- 
democratic  element  which  hesitated  at  no  violence  of 
expression.  The  nation,  which  is  also  a  poHtical  party, 
was  represented  in  the  Reichstag  of  191 2  by  twenty 
members,  in  the  Prussian  Landtag  of  1913  by  twelve; 
its  press  spread  by  degrees  a  network  of  agitation  centres 
over  the  eastern  marches  and  the  whole  Rhine-West- 
phalian  industrial  district.  The  spirit  of  the  PoHsh  press 
may  be  characterized  by  a  quotation  from  the  Gnesen 
Lech  of  September,  191 1,  showing  the  attitude  of  the 
patriotic  Poles  towards  those  members  of  their  race  who 
sell  their  land  to  Germans : 

"If  the  seller  wishes  to  shake  your  hand,  then  turn 
away  and  spit  on  the  ground  as  before  the  greatest  of 
villains ;  if  he  wishes  to  enter  your  house,  lock  the  door 
in  his  face.  May  he  Hve  in  lonehness  like  Cain !  May 
the  curse  of  the  PoUsh  people  weigh  upon  him  till  death ! 
May  no  one  follow  his  coffin,  no  one  pray  for  the  repose 
of  his  soul !" 

To  the  efforts  of  a  strong  and  aggressive  press  must  be 
added  those  of  the  PoUsh  clergy.  A  struggle  between 
two  races  is  unfortunate  at  best :  it  becomes  most  disas- 
trous when  intermingled,  as  here,  with  religious  hatred. 
The  Poles,  as  has  been  noted,  are  more  than  nine- tenths 
Roman  Cathohc,  and  place  themselves  with  remarkable 
discipHne  under  the  orders  of  their  clergy.     It  must  be 


252    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

remarked,  however,  that  this  is  because  to  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  nation  church  and  national  cause  are  com- 
pletely identified.  The  press  cannot  find  words  bitter 
enough  to  describe  a  priest  who  shows  himself  weak  or 
wobbly  in  defense  of  the  national  Polish  cause.  It 
would  be  wrong  to  say  that  every  Polish  priest  is  a  Pole 
before  he  is  a  churchman,  but  it  is  certainly  true  that 
the  clergy  have  fostered  the  national  cause  with  the 
greatest  zeal.  The  late  Archbishop  Kopp  of  Breslau 
and  other  prelates  suspected  of  anti-Polish  sentiments 
were  at  times  the  object  of  the  bitterest  invective.  In 
spite  of  the  support  given  the  Poles  by  their  coreligion- 
ists of  the  Centre  party,  the  Poles  robbed  the  Centre  of 
five  Reichstag  electoral  districts  in  upper  Silesia  in  1907. 
The  Royal  Commission  early  found  that  it  was  highly 
desirable  to  settle  Protestants  in  the  debatable  districts, 
for  the  reason  that  the  Catholic  colonist,  finding  it 
difl&cult  to  obtain  the  ministrations  of  German  priests, 
was  dependent  upon  the  Polish  clergy  and  ran  a  strong 
risk  of  becoming  denationalized. 

The  clergy  also  have  been  the  leaders  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  numerous  societies  which  link  the  Poles  into 
such  powerful  organizations  for  defense  and  offense  in  the 
political,  industrial,  commercial  and  social  world.  Secret 
international  societies  like  the  Liga  polska,  a  far-flung 
political  union  with  groups  wherever  radical  Poles  are 
found  working  for  the  reerection  of  the  fatherland,  and 
the  Zet,  a  radical  student  organization,  are  said  to  be 
strongly  represented  in  Germany  and  interlocked  through 
identical  officeholders  with  the  Prussian-Polish  social, 
athletic  and  industrial  organizations.  Within  Prussia 
Polish  societies  multiplied  with  bewildering  rapidity 
after  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century.  The  Po- 
lish agricultural  and  industrial  laborers  were  organized 
in  the  St.  Isidore  Clubs,  for  the  Sachsenganger,  and  the 
Polish  Catholic  Workmen's  Clubs,  both  groups  under 
the  leadership  of  clergymen,  besides  a  number  of  unions 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  253 

for  the  various  branches  of  industry.  The  Polish  youth 
were  enrolled  in  the  Sokol  ("Falcon"),  athletic  clubs 
with  strongly  patriotic  spirit.  The  Straz,  founded  in 
Posen  in  1905,  won  immediate  success  as  an  economic- 
industrial  organization.  Rural  workers  were  organized 
into  hundreds  of  rural  clubs.  The  Rolnik,  associations 
leagued  among  themselves  for  the  purchase  and  sale  of 
agricultural  products  and  for  supplying  the  farmers 
with  their  necessities,  made  the  PoKsh  peasant  largely 
independent  of  the  German  middleman.  There  are  also 
merchants'  associations,  large  landholders'  associations, 
etc.  Many  of  these  organizations  are  under  the  control 
of  the  clergy ;  each  group  has  its  own  press,  and  nearly 
all  are  political  in  tendency  and  interlocked  with  the 
Polish  political  parties.  They  are  radical  in  their  nature, 
less  from  any  afl&liation  with  the  international  secret 
revolutionary  organizations  of  the  Poles  than  because 
they  foster  a  spirit  of  racial  solidarity  and  boiling  patriot- 
ism for  the  Polish  cause.  No  wonder  the  Germans  speak 
of  the  "  sleeping  army,"  which  according  to  an  old  Polish 
legend  is  some  day  to  arise  and  set  the  Polish  nation 
free. 

Just  where  the  anti-German  campaign  will  ultimately 
land,  even  the  leaders  among  the  Poles  have  been  un- 
certain. For  the  present,  they  are  content  to  fight  the 
Prussian  state  with  economic  weapons.  For  genera- 
tions the  Poles  have  been  dependent  on  German  industry 
and  German  capital,  in  recent  years  they  have  been 
rapidly  making  themselves  independent  of  both.  Polish 
banks  hoard  capital,  not  merely  from  the  eastern 
provinces,  but  from  Polish  workers  in  Westphahan  mill 
and  mine  and  from  their  brothers  and  sisters  in  America. 
Wherever  a  Polish  centre  was  established  in  the  debatable 
territory,  there  arose  a  branch  of  the  PoHsh  "Folk 
Bank"  {banca  ludowy)  to  supply  the  money  for  PoHsh 
undertakings,  principally  for  the  purchase  of  land  from 
Germans.     The  work  of  the  " parcellation  banks"  in 


254    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

circumventing  the  "Settlement  Law"  by  the  division 
of  great  estates  among  the  Poles  has  been  noted.  In 
the  early  nineties  a  priest  of  Posen,  Wawrzyniak,  founded 
a  "League  of  Polish  Societies  of  Industry  and  Com- 
merce," which  by  the  end  of  191 2  had  already  articulated 
together  279  societies  for  industry  and  commerce,  with 
134,000  members,  for  economic  offense  a,nd  defense. 

These  efforts  have  not  confined  themselves  to  the 
eastern  marches,  but  have  extended,  as  has  been  noted, 
all  over  the  eastern  provinces  and  to  more  than  400,000 
Poles  whom  the  coal,  iron  and  steel  industries  attracted 
to  Westphalia  and  the  adjacent  Rhineland.  In  upper 
Silesia  dwell  more  than  a  million  people  of  Polish  race, 
known  in  Germany  as  the  "Water  Poles."  This  district 
ceased  to  be  a  part  of  the  Polish  state  in  11 63;  for 
centuries  its  people  lived  contentedly  under  German 
rule,  and  they  were  often  cited  by  Prussian  statesmen  as 
an  example  of  a  PoHsh  branch  which  had  allowed  itself 
to  be  peacefully  absorbed.  Early  in  the  eighties,  how- 
ever, they  began  to  be  infected  with  the  Greater  Polish 
idea  and  they  have  since  then  been  completely  won  for 
the  Polish  cause,  so  that  thousands  of  them  began  to 
make  an  annual  pilgrimage  to  the  tombs  of  the  ancient 
Polish  kings  in  Cracow  in  Austrian  Galicia.  Urgent 
efforts  were  made  to  mobilize  other  Slavic  fragments  in 
eastern  Prussia  for  the  Polish  cause :  the  Kassubs,  a 
Wendish  fragment,  dwelling  on  a  strip  of  territory  run- 
ning back  from  the  Baltic  coast  into  West  Prussia  and 
Pomerania,  and  the  Masurs,  a  mixture  of  Slavic  and 
German  elements  in  the  southern  part  of  the  province  of 
East  Prussia.  The  former  are,  like  the  Poles,  for  the 
most  part  Roman  Catholics,  the  latter  overwhelmingly 
Protestant.  The  vernacular  of  both  of  these  Slavic  frag- 
ments differs  from  Polish,  but  not  so  much  as  to  make 
intercourse  impossible.  In  both  of  these  districts,  in- 
cluding several  hundred  thousand  people,  the  Poles 
have  made  active  propaganda  since  the  middle  eighties, 


THE   POLISH  QUESTION  255 

seeking  by  the  establishment  of  a  Polish  press,  by- 
founding  branches  of  the  "Folk  Bank"  and  by  the 
organization  of  clubs  to  awaken  the  Slavic  conscious- 
ness. Among  the  evangelical  Masurians  they  have 
thus  far  met  with  small  success.  The  Kassubs,  an 
impoverished  and  economically  insignificant  race,  ac- 
cepted the  Pohsh  propaganda  with  enthusiasm  and  thus 
afforded  the  Greater  Polish  idea  a  firm  footing  on  the 
shores  of  the  Baltic.  In  WestphaHa,  whither  the  Poles 
have  streamed  since  the  middle  of  the  seventies,  they 
have  completely  sundered  themselves  from  the  Germans, 
and  firmly  organized  into  a  great  number  of  societies  and 
clubs,  and  led  by  an  aggressive  press,  have  preserved 
their  language  and  racial  identity.  They  still  regard 
the  eastern  marches  as  their  true  home,  and  a  consider- 
able part  of  their  savings  has  gone  to  capitalize  the 
struggle  for  land  in  the  debatable  territory.    . 

The  success  of  the  Poles  in  this  land  struggle  has 
already  been  noted.  Their  progress  in  the  conquest  of 
the  smaller  villages  and  cities  of  the  East,  while  not  so 
easy  to  show  by  statistics,  has  nevertheless  been  very 
real.  Their  deadliest  weapon  here  has  been  the  boycott, 
an  arm  before  which  the  Germans  are  comparatively 
helpless,  partly  from  a  lack  of  organization  and  partly 
because  their  fighting  spirit  hars  awakened  so  slowly. 
The  Poles  are  passed  masters  in  the  use  of  the  boycott, 
and  have  worked  therewith  the  greatest  damage  to 
German  trade  and  industry  in  the  smaller  towns  of  the 
debatable  land.  Trained  by  his  press  and  admonished 
by  clergy  and  society,  the  Pole  buys  only  of  Poles.  He 
consults  only  a  Polish  lawyer  or  physician  or  dentist. 
It  never  occurs  to  him  to  drink  his  glass  in  a  German 
tavern  or  patronize  a  German  restaurant.  The  Pole 
who  illuminates  his  house  for  the  king's  birthday  or 
affiliates  with  the  former  members  of  his  regiment  in  a 
German  veterans'  association  draws  upon  himself  bitter 
words  from  the  pulpit  and  press  and  social  ostracism 


256    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

from  his  Polish  neighbors.  Polish  young  men  and 
maidens  are  warned  against  "mixed  marriages,"  even 
with  CathoHc  Germans,  as  a  treachery  to  their  nation. 
An  ever  watchful  correspondent  stands  ready  to  report 
to  the  nearest  paper  the  name  of  the  girl  who  buys  her 
hat  from  a  German  or  Jewish  store  or  the  young  man 
who  frequents  German  society. 

This  boycott,  which  has  led  occasionally  to  a  sort  of 
terrorism,  especially  during  electoral  campaigns,  has 
ruined  the  German  shopkeepers  in  many  small  towns 
of  the  East,  for  the  German  buys  where  he  can  buy 
most  cheaply.  To  begin  with,  the  Pole  has  a  tremendous 
advantage  in  the  possession  of  two  languages,  for  while 
the  Pole  must  learn  German  in  the  school  and  the  army, 
very  few  Germans  command  Polish.  The  invasion  of  a 
town  in  the  eastern  marches  by  Poles  goes  on  as  follows : 
When  a  Polish  tradesman  finds  his  way  thither,  he  is  not 
immediately  recognized  as  a  Pole.  By  thrift  and  strict 
attention  to  business  he  wins  the  respect  of  all  classes. 
In  his  place  of  business  he  gradually  supplants  all  the 
Germans  with  Poles.  Soon  there  come  a  Polish  tailor 
and  a  Polish  shoemaker.  A  Polish  tavern  opens  its  doors 
and  develops  erelong  into  a  good  hotel.  A  Polish  phy- 
sician and  a  Polish  lawyer  follow.  The  press  and  the 
priest  take  care  that  Poles  spend  their  money  only  with 
Poles.  Polish  clubs  begin  to  flourish  and  German  trades- 
men begin  to  employ  Polish  clerks  and  even  to  acquire  a 
little  business  Polish  themselves.  With  the  growth  in 
numbers  the  Poles  grow  more  aggressive ;  they  proceed 
to  drive  the  Germans  from  the  parish  council,  which 
through  their  superior  organization  they  are  often  able 
to  control.  Perhaps  at  the  Landtag  election  a  political 
row  occurs,  and  Prussian  soldiers  are  sent,  whose  stay 
of  course  contributes  still  further  to  the  Polish  cash  boxes. 
In  the  meantime  Polish  children  are  increasing  in  the 
schools  and  even  begin  to  throng  the  higher  schools. 
The  patriotic  German  is  getting  into  serious  financial 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  257 

trouble.  Things  may  go  so  far  that  he  cannot  hold  a 
political  meeting  because  all  the  halls  are  in  PoUsh 
hands.  If  he  ventures  to  propose  publicly  a  toast  to  the 
Emperor  or  sing  ''  Dentschland  iiher  alles,"  he  may  start 
a  riot  and  bring  on  his  business  an  absolute  and  destruc- 
tive boycott.  Gradually  he  yields  to  superior  force  and 
hides  his  German  sympathies  in  the  background  before 
Polish  terrorism,  or  even,  if  he  is  a  Roman  CathoHc, 
allows  his  family  to  become  gradually  Polonized.  This, 
or  practically  this,  was  the  history  of  Schwetz  on  the 
Vistula  after  1900,  and  a  similar  story  might  be  told 
of  other  small  cities  m  West  Prussia,  as  well  as  in  Posen 
and  parts  of  East  Prussia,  Pomerania  and  Silesia. 

Cases  of  violence  have  been  rare.  The  Pole  learned 
his  lesson  in  1848  and  1863,  and  knows  that  any  appeal 
to  arms  could  for  the  present  only  hinder  the  advance  of 
the  "sleeping  army."  Of  the  abrupt  miHtary  methods 
of  the  Prussian  administration  he  has  occasionally  had  a 
taste  during  electoral  rows  or  as  the  result  of  too  much 
display  of  PoHsh  patriotism  on  a  German  national  holi- 
day. An  instance  of  the  readiness  and  efficiency  of  the 
Prussian  bureaucracy  when  something  tangible  presents 
itself  was  the  school  strike  of  1906-07,  a  chapter  in  the 
struggle  for  the  maintenance  of  the  PoHsh  language. 
Up  to  1872  PoHsh  and  German  had  fought  with  varying 
success  for  predominance  in  the  schools  of  the  Pohsh 
provinces;  after  that  German  was  made  the  language 
of  instruction  everywhere,  PoHsh  being  retained,  with 
some  interruptions,  merely  as  an  elective  subject  in  the 
advanced  classes.  In  Germany  religious  instruction  is 
given  in  the  schools  and  the  religious  question  of  course 
lurks  somewhere  behind  every  struggle  over  school 
poHcy.  It  has  been  shown  how  closely  religion  and 
national  patriotism  are  intertwined  in  the  PoHsh  soul, 
and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  Poles  have 
made  their  most  determined  stand  in  defense  of  reHgious 
instruction  in  their  own  tongue.     By  a  regulation  of  the 


258    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Prussian  Department  of  Education,  adopted  during  the 
KuUurkampJ,  it  was  provided  that  all  children  capable 
of  understanding  German  to  a  sufficient  degree  should 
receive  their  religious  instruction  in  that  language.  In 
practice  it  came  about  that  the  children  of  Polish  families 
who  had  been  permitted  to  learn  the  catechism  in  the 
language  of  their  fathers  in  the  lower  classes,  were  trans- 
ferred with  increasing  years  to  rehgious  classes  in  Ger- 
man. Constant  irritation  was  the  result,  mounting  with 
the  passing  years,  the  Pohsh  clergy  taking  a  leading  part 
against  requiring  the  Httle  ones  to  "learn  the  sacred 
religion  in  the  hateful  German  language. "  This  agitation 
reached  its  climax  in  the  fall  of  1906,  when  in  imitation  of 
a  similar  movement  in  Russia,  children  in  a  number  of 
schools  in  the  Polish  provinces  under  instruction  from 
their  parents  refused  to  answer  questions  on  the  catechism 
in  German  or  to  learn  German  hymns.  Beginning 
directly  after  the  long  vacation  in  1906,  the  strike  was 
vigorously  fanned  by  the  Polish  press  and  clergy  until 
it  involved  in  the  provinces  of  Posen  and  West  Prussia 
over  one  thousand  schools,  including  some  60,00c  scholars. 
The  tone  of  the  Polish  press  and  clergy  became  ex- 
ceedingly bitter.  The  Prussian  officials  were  compared 
to  Herod  and  Pharaoh ;  they  were  charged  with  misusing 
rehgious  instruction  for  pohtical  purposes ;  the  enforced 
instruction  in  German  was  a  "sinful  desecration  of  the 
Catholic  reUgion,"  "a  tyranny  over  the  conscience  in 
which  only  the  devil  in  the  gorge  of  hell  and  the  Prussian 
government  could  find  satisfaction";  the  government, 
"having  robbed  the  Polish  people  of  all  it  holds  dear,  now 
seeks  to  rob  it  of  its  last  treasure,  the  holy  faith."  The 
children  were  heralded  as  martyrs  to  faith  and  nation ; 
the  parents  were  promised  the  special  protection  of  the 
saints  for  their  fight  against  the  Germanizing  and  Luther- 
izing  of  their  children.  Prayers  were  said  for  the  striking 
boys  and  girls,  who  on  more  than  one  occasion  marched 
directly  from  the  school  to  church,  where  a  mass  was 


THE   POLISH  QUESTION  259 

said  for  them.  Under  such  urging,  the  youngsters  left 
nothing  to  be  desired  in  the  ardor  of  their  opposition, 
greeting  the  reUgious  teacher  with  PoHsh  songs  and 
adjurations  and  strewing  the  roadsides  with  the  frag- 
ments of  their  German  catechisms. 

The  Prussian  school  administration  proceeded  against 
the  strike  with  all  of  the  vigor  which  its  strongly  cen- 
tralized system  makes  possible.  The  school  regulations 
discourage  corporal  punishment;  but  the  youngsters 
were  "kept  back,"  deprived  of  all  privileges  and  threat- 
ened with  a  loss  of  promotion ;  and  when  that  did  not 
avail,  the  temporal  arm  was  invoked  against  their  parents. 
Fines  were  imposed,  and  parents  who,  to  save  their  chil- 
dren from  threats  and  strenuous  treatment  by  the 
teachers,  had  kept  the  youngsters  at  home  received  in 
some  cases  considerable  terms  in  prison.  As  a  final 
resort  the  ministry  turned  to  a  measure  which  has  on 
more  than  one  occasion  reduced  refractory  school  dis- 
tricts in  Prussia  to  obedience :  additional  teachers  were 
appointed,  whose  pay  fell  heavily  upon  the  taxpayers 
in  rural  and  smaller  urban  communities.  As  a  result 
of  this  vigorous  treatment,  the  strike  began  to  give  way 
in  a  few  months,  and  by  the  Easter  hohdays  of  1907  was 
practically  suppressed,  leaving  behind  a  bitter  heritage 
of  hate  which  will  burn  fi.ercely  for  decades  in  the  eastern 
marches  when  the  boys  and  girls  involved  have  become 
men  and  women. 

The  strike  had  therefore  its  serious  as  well  as  its  pa- 
thetic and  ludicrous  side.  As  an  episode  in  the  Pohsh- 
German  struggle  it  is  illuminating.  That  the  Poles 
actually  beUeve  that  their  sacred  rights  are  invaded  by 
the  religious  instruction  of  their  children  in  German 
cannot  be  doubted.  The  Germans,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  abundant  and  humiliating  experience  before  1872 
with  the  denationahzing  which  takes  place  when  German 
and  Polish  are  given  equal  rights  in  the  schools.  Whether 
from  the  readiness  with  which  the  German  assumes  for- 


26o     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

eign  culture,  —  both  a  strength  and  a  weakness  of  the 
race,  —  whether  because  of  the  Polish  means  of  agitation, 
which  have  been  sufficiently  described,  it  is  certain  that 
before  the  Kulturkampf  thousands  of  Germans  were 
swallowed  up  so  completely  in  the  PoHsh  race  that  to- 
day even  their  names  are  scarcely  recognizable.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  German  is  also  certainly  justified  in 
pointing  to  the  benefits  which  the  German  elementary 
school  has  brought  to  the  Polish  provinces.  Even  a 
short  journey  through  the  Austrian  province  of  Gahcia 
or  Russian  Poland  shows  the  heaven-wide  superiority  of 
the  German  Pole  in  cultural  values.  The  percentage  of 
illiteracy  among  males  in  the  province  of  Posen  fell  from 
41  per  cent  in  1841  to  15.59  P^^  cent  in  1871,  0.12  per 
cent  in  1901  and  0.05  in  1905.  Indeed,  the  Germans 
claim  with  justice  that  the  fight  which  the  Poles  are  so 
successfully  waging  against  them  would  be  far  less 
significant  were  it  not  for  the  matchless  organization  of 
the  German  Volksschule  and  its  graduate  institution,  the 
two  years'  mihtary  service. 

The  most  unfortunate  side  of  this  racial  struggle  has 
been  touched  on  several  times  already :  it  is  embitter- 
ment  by  the  use  of  religious  weapons.  It  is  not  merely 
that  the  clergy  have  been  for  generations  the  most  vigor- 
ous and  uncompromising  leaders  of  the  Polish  resistance. 
The  Prussian  state,  as  has  been  shown,  is  two-thirds 
Protestant;  and  the  German  Catholic  believes  that  he 
must  stand  guard  in  defense  of  his  religious  rights.  It 
is  all  too  easy  to  convince  the  rank  and  file  among  the 
Poles  that  "Germanizing  is  Protestantizing,"  and  that 
in  defending  his  national  cause  he  is  doing  the  will  of 
God.  The  Centre  group  in  the  Landtag  has  steadily 
opposed  colonization  and  other  moves  to  weaken  the 
Polish  influence  in  the  East ;  nevertheless  when  racial 
interests  seemed  to  demand  it,  the  PoHsh  electoral  ma- 
chinery has  been  turned  against  the  Centre,  even  when 
this  meant  a  temporary  alUance  with  the  Social  Demo- 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  261 

crats,  as  in  Westphalia  in  1907.  When  it  comes  to  a 
conflict  between  church  solidarity  and  racial  interests, 
the  German  Pole  never  hesitates  to  choose  the  latter. 
Any  priest  who  "wobbles"  in  support  of  the  national 
cause  is  branded  as  a  traitor  to  God  or  the  servant  of 
Mammon,  and  the  German  Catholics  are  occasionally 
described  as  "disguised  Lutherans"  or  "Christian 
heathen." 

Racial  solidarity  has  prevented  the  Social  Democracy 
from  making  any  great  inroads  among  the  Polish  work- 
ingmen.  There  is,  indeed,  a  Socialist  party,  loosely 
afi^ated  with  the  Polish  Socialists  of  Russia  and  Galicia, 
which  unites  in  its  program  national  and  sociaUst  ideals ; 
but  the  economic  Utopia  is  second  in  importance  to  the 
realization  of  an  independent  Poland.  There  are  like- 
wise conservative  leaders  among  the  Poles,  adhering  to 
the  old  "party  of  the  nobles,"  who  would  seek  to  obtain 
from  the  Prussian  government  Uvable  conditions  for 
their  people ;  and  believing  the  resurrection  of  the  an- 
cient state  impossible,  would  try  to  perpetuate  the 
PoUsh  language  and  national  consciousness  and  a  truly 
Polish  culture.  These,  however,  are  not  the  influential 
leaders  of  the  present,  who  through  a  far-reaching  net- 
work of  clubs  of  political  tendency  dictate  the  poHcy  of 
their  people.  For  the  most  part  these  leaders  seem 
to  be  affiliated  with  a  National  Democratic  Party,  the 
accredited  representative  of  the  international  Polish 
league  and  a  brother  organization  to  similar  parties  in 
Austria  and  Russia.  Their  ultimate  object  is  the  winning 
of  political  independence  for  the  Poles  on  a  democratic 
basis ;  their  immediate  aim,  anything  that  can  be  done 
within  the  Prussian  constitution  for  the  attainment  of 
this  purpose. 

What  do  the  Prussian  Poles  regard  as  political  in- 
dependence? What  do  they  believe  to  be  pohtically 
obtainable?  One  may  smile  at  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
journalist  or  orator  who  yearns  for  "the  day  when  the 


262    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

white  eagle  shall  spread  his  wings  again  over  an  inde- 
pendent Polish  empire,  stretching  from  the  Dnieper  to 
the  Oder  and  from  the  Black  Sea  to  the  Baltic!"  but 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  renaissance  of  the  Polish  state 
within  limits  which  shall  be  no  less  than  those  before  the 
first  partition  in  1772  is  a  guiding  star  for  the  great  body 
of  patriotic  Poles,  inspiring  them  to  tremendous  deeds 
of  industry  and  sacrifice.  For  this  the  Pole  works  and 
saves,  for  this  he  organizes  his  young  men  and  women, 
striving  to  make  them  in  every  point  of  culture  the 
equal  of  the  "oppressor."  While  since  the  turn  of  the 
century  a  radical  spirit  has  grown  among  the  Prussian 
Poles  by  leaps  and  bounds,  no  one  has  dreamed  of  an 
armed  revolution  within  the  immediate  future.  The 
leaders  realized  from  the  first  the  futility  of  any  such 
thing  in  the  face  of  the  opposition  of  three  powerful 
nations,  and  the  German  Pole,  being  better  educated 
than  his  Russian  fellow-patriot,  has  realized  it  better 
than  he.  To  organize,  to  instil  a  hatred  of  Prussia 
into  his  children,  to  get  possession  of  the  land  and  crowd 
the  Germans  out  of  the  towns,  to  defend  his  language 
with  the  greatest  tenacity,  —  these  are  the  things  which 
he  can  do  and  which  he  has  done  so  far  as  the  Prussian 
law  allows.  But  while  generations  of  opposition  have 
made  the  Pole  a  first-class  fighter  under  cover  and  have 
heated  national  feeling  to  the  boiling  point,  it  must  be 
confessed  that  there  has  been  a  great  lack  of  definite 
propositions  for  self-government  under  Prussian  rule. 
Those  formulated  in  1897  by  one  of  the  foremost  of 
radical  PoKsh  journals,  the  Gazeta  Grudzionska,  are 
t)^ical.  After  demanding  equal  rights  for  Polish  with 
German  as  an  official  language,  the  Polish  paper  goes 
on : 

*'In  the  elementary  schools  our  children  must  be  first 
taught  only  Polish,  and  afterwards  be  trained  as  well 
as  possible  in  the  German  language.  In  his  official  trans- 
actions the  Pole  must  be  permitted  to  use  PoHsh  both 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  263 

in  writing  and  in  speech.  In  the  Polish  districts  the 
officials  must  be  born  Poles  or  at  least  have  a  fluent 
command  of  the  Polish  language.  All  Polish  sections 
—  viz.,  Silesia,  Posen,  West  Prussia,  Masuria  and  Erm- 
land  (in  East  Prussia)  —  must  be  united  under  the 
administration'  of  a  royal  governor  with  their  own 
Diet.  .  .  .  All  special  legislation  against  the  Poles 
must  be  withdrawn,  and  all  officials  must  be  forbidden 
under  the  severest  penalties  to  oppress  or  persecute  the 
Polish  nationaUty  in  any  way." 

That  the  granting  of  such  demands  would  be  fraught 
with  the  gravest  danger  to  Prussia  and  the  German 
empire  cannot  be  doubted.  The  ancient  Polish  state 
was  not  a  national  state,  but  a  state  in  which  a  minority 
of  Poles  ruled  over  a  majority  of  Russians,  Lithuanians, 
Ruthenians,  Germans  and  Jews.  If  we  may  trust  the 
figures  of  the  Prussian  statistical  bureau,  of  the  two 
so-called  Polish  provinces,  Posen  is  39  per  cent  and  West 
Prussia  65  per  cent  German  at  the  present  time.  To 
give  over  these  provinces  to  a  PoKsh  administration 
would  be  to  hand  over  a  large  minority  of  Germans  to 
be  ruled  by  a  small  majority  of  Poles,  and  in  this  connec- 
tion German  writers  point  to  the  fate  of  the  Ruthenians 
of  GaKcia,  whose  linguistic  and  racial  claims  have  been 
ignored  by  the  Polish  administration  of  the  Austrian 
province.  It  would  virtually  mean  that  the  German 
frontier  would  be  moved  to  the  west,  making  BerKn  a 
frontier  city  and  exposing  the  vitals  of  the  empire, 
always  without  natural  defenses  to  the  east,  to  a  Slavic 
blow.  "I  would  rather  sacrifice  the  Rhineland,"  said 
Bismarck  in  1863,  "than  the  Polish  provinces;"  and 
those  who  have  followed  the  development  of  Germany 
in  the  train  of  Prussia's  rise  will  understand  why.  Out 
of  the  East  came  Germany's  unity;  towards  the  East 
Lies  her  greatest  peril.  If  ever  the  deathblow  to  Ger- 
many's existence  as  a  great  power  comes,  it  will  not  come 
along  the  Verdun  road  and  down  the  valley  of  the  Moselle 


264    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

nor  through  the  harbors  of  the  North  Sea,  but  across  the 
plains  of  the  Vistula. 

This  then  is  the  Polish  danger.  Not  because  three  to 
three  and  one-half  million  Poles  in  the  eastern  marches 
could  ever  threaten  the  security  of  twenty  times  as  many 
Germans  have  the  Prussian  patriots  regarded  the  Polish 
question  as  vital.  But  the  Prussian  Poles  are  only  a 
small  wing,  —  the  best  trained  and  educated,  it  is  true, 
—  only  a  part  of  a  greater  host,  which  Polish  patriots 
put  at  eighteen  millions,  seven  to  eight  millions  of  whom 
live  in  Russia,  four  millions  in  Austria  and  two  and  one- 
half  millions  in  America,  ready  to  supply  the  sinews  of 
war.  The  growth  of  a  Polish  national  feeling  is  for 
the  Germans  dangerously  allied  with  the  Pan-Slavic 
movement.  During  the  Russo-Japanese  war  the  Polish 
press  in  Germany,  while  exulting  in  Russia's  humilia- 
tion, gave  expression  to  even  more  earnest  yearnings  for 
the  fall  of  the  "arch-enemy  Prussia."  There  is  no  doubt 
that  the  growth  of  a  "greater  Slavic"  feeling  among 
Poles,  Russians  and  Bohemian  Czechs  is  fraught  with 
danger  to  Germany's  future.  It  is  hard  to  see  how  the 
Germans  could  accord  the  Poles  any  considerable  share 
of  independence  in  the  eastern  provinces  without  running 
the  risk  of  solidifying  even  further  an  enemy  on  the  eastern 
marches  who  might  some  day  hold  open  a  door  to  an 
allied  enemy.  West  Prussia  and  Posen  are  not  Ireland 
or  South  Africa,  but  a  necessary  bulwark  to  Germany's 
greatness.  In  fact,  the  same  reason  exists  for  holding 
the  provinces  as  inspired  Frederick  the  Great  for  de- 
manding his  share  in  the  dismemberment  of  Poland : 
what  does  not  remain  German  runs  the  risk  of  becoming 
Russian,  or  if  not  Russian,  Pan-Slavic. 

Nor  could  the  patriotic  German  think  of  surrendering 
the  two  million  Germans  who  live  in  the  basin  of  the 
Vistula,  the  upper  Oder  and  the  Memel  to  becoming 
Polonized.  It  has  not  for  centuries  been  possible  to  draw 
a  line  separating  German  from  Polish  districts.    The 


THE  POLISH  QUESTION  265 

two  races  live  together  as  they  have  lived  for  seven 
hundred  years,  intricately  tied  up  with  each  other  in 
agricultural  and  business  life,  with  here  a  Polish  village 
and  there  a  predominatingly  German  parish.  Enough 
has  been  said  of  the  history  of  the  provinces  to  show 
that  here,  as  among  the  Magyars  of  Hungary  and  the 
Czechs  of  Bohemia,  the  Germans  were  the  bearers  of  a 
higher  culture  and  the  schoolmasters  of  civilization. 
This  brings  with  it  an  historical  justification,  if  one 
may  speak  of  historical  justification  in  districts  where 
historical  conditions  have  undergone  such  a  tremendous 
change.  And  if  history  is  to  be  cited,  it  may  be  shown 
that  the  periods  of  conciliation,  such  as  1841-48  and 
1890-94,  were  followed  by  the  most  rapid  growth  in  the 
Polish  national  spirit. 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  here,  as  in  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  Prussia  has  shown  herself  no  winner  of  peaceful 
victories  over  a  subject  people.  The  uncompromising 
spirit  of  Prussian  bureaucracy  aggravated  a  difi&cult 
situation  not  only  among  the  Poles  but  among  the 
Danes  in  Schleswig-Holstein  and  the  Frenchified  Ger- 
mans in  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  on  the  eastern  border 
as  well  as  on  the  western  and  northwestern  the  irritation 
of  a  non-German  people  has  been  greater  because  coupled 
with  a  non-democratic  system.  The  Poles  with  their 
rare  national  sense,  their  strong  pohtico-religious  or- 
ganization and  their  greater  simplicity  of  Hfe  have  been 
able  to  more  than  hold  their  own  thus  far  and  will  no 
doubt  continue  to  do  so,  unless  Prussia  puts  more  money 
and  more  energy  into  the  contest  than  heretofore.  In 
the  meantime  the  struggle  has  brought  material  ad- 
vantages to  Germany's  East  through  the  rise  in  the  value 
of  land  and  the  new  capital  and  new  economic  energy 
which  have  been  unlocked.  It  may  be  that  this  by- 
product of  a  lamentable  racial  struggle  will  itself  work 
towards  an  adjustment.  It  has  been  seen  how  closely 
the  Polish  question  is  tied  up  with  the  question  of  rural 


266    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

labor  and  agricultural  prosperity.  Some  day  the  East 
will  undoubtedly  attain  a  degree  of  prosperity  which  will 
cause  economic  and  industrial  questions  to  cross  and 
complicate  the  national  struggle.  When  through  in- 
creased wealth  the  Poles  shall  have  attained  the  same 
standard  of  living  as  the  Germans,  the  economic  rivalry 
with  the  Germans  must  yield  to  some  extent  to  the  class 
struggle.  It  must  be  added,  however,  that  none  of  the 
non-German  Prussians  will  ever  be  content  under  Prus- 
sian rule  until  Prussia  accords  to  all  her  citizens  full 
rights  of  free  citizenship. 


PART    IV 
TRANSFORMATIONS  AND  TENDENCIES 


CHAPTER  XIII 

The  Rule  of  the  Cities 

The  Germans  are  the  only  civilized  people  who  have 
won  great  power  without  the  possession  of  a  great  city. 
This  fact  runs  through  the  entire  history  of  modern  Ger- 
many and  is  of  infinite  importance  for  understanding 
German  development  in  pohtics,  in  art,  in  social  Ufe 
and  industry.  In  1840  only  Berlin  and  Hamburg  had 
passed  the  one  hundred  thousand  mark,  and  even  thirty 
years  later,  when  the  great  centripetal  forces  of  railroad 
building  and  industrial  growth  had  been  making  them- 
selves felt  for  more  than  a  decade,  only  six  more  cities  — 
Breslau,  Cologne,  Munich,  Dresden,  Konigsberg,  Leipsic 
—  had  reached  this  figure.  No  more  in  the  early  seven- 
ties than  to-day  could  one  name  the  German  capital 
city.  Each  had  then  as  now  its  claims:  Dresden, 
with  its  unique  collections ;  Munich,  with  its  rich  artistic 
and  industrial  life;  Stuttgart,  a  complete  though  tiny 
metropolis  amid  its  verdant  hills;  Frankfort  on  the 
Main,  the  financial  capital;  Hamburg,  the  gateway  to 
the  world's  trade.  And  none  the  less  has  each  of  the  cities 
of  Prussia  a  physiognomy  so  striking  and  a  history  and 
character  so  unique  that  no  look  at  German  culture 
would  be  complete  without  at  least  a  glimpse  at  several 
of  them:  Cologne,  the  ancient,  sacred  queen  of  the 
Rhine ;  Breslau,  the  point  of  the  German  wedge  driven 
into  Slavic  lands;  Konigsberg,  the  sentinel  on  the 
northeast,  the  nursery  of  Prussia's  greatness. 

The  whole  history  of  German  culture  in  the  nineteenth 
century  is,   in  fact,  provincial  history.  The  scientific 

269 


2  70    THE   GERM.\N  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

discoveries  which  have  written  the  name  of  the  Ger- 
man universities  so  high  among  those  who  have  helped 
mankind  came  from  Gottingen,  Wiirzburg,  Tubingen 
and  Heidelberg  rather  than  from  the  greater  metropoKtan 
universities.  Jena  and  Bonn  have  united  with  Berlin 
in  supplying  Germany  with  its  philosophy ;  Gottingen 
and  Leipsic  led  the  way  in  philology,  while  German 
Hterature  has  clung  to  Weimar  and  Munich  and  out-of- 
the-way  corners  of  Thuringia,  Silesia  and  Schleswig- 
Holstein,  so  far  as  it  has  not  been  Viennese  or  Styrian 
or  Swiss.  To  everything  the  Prussian-imperial  capital 
Berun  has  added  its  part,  a  noble  and  increasingly 
influential  part,  it  is  true,  but  a  part  no  more  indispen- 
sable than  that  of  Munich  and  others. 

In  fact,  until  well  after  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  great  majority  of  Germans  lived  in  the 
country ;  indeed,  even  as  late  as  1880  the  Germans  were 
less  a  city-dwelling  folk  than  the  Italians  or  the  Turks. 
In  the  year  of  the  war  with  France  only  26  per  cent  of 
Germany's  41,000,000  hved  in  cities  of  more  than  five 
thousand  inhabitants.  But  the  movement  cityv/ard  had 
already  begun.  Its  cause  was  not  a  political  one,  al- 
though the  pohtical  importance  of  Berlin  and  border 
cities  like  Metz  and  Strasburg  and  Aix-la-Chapelle 
added  greatly  to  their  growth.  It  began  with  the 
development  of  railroads  and  the  improvement  of 
water  transportation,  it  went  forward  with  increasing 
acceleration  with  the  growth  of  German  industry  and 
it  finally  reached  a  point  where  only  Great  Britain,  the 
Low  Countries  and  the  United  States  exceeded  Germany 
in  the  percentage  of  city  dwellers.  Now  nearly  two- 
thirds  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  German  empire  live  in 
cities  of  two  thousand  and  over,  more  than  half  in 
cities  of  over  five  thousand ;  in  fact,  practically  the  en- 
tire increase  of  population  since  1880  has  been  in  the 
cities,  the  population  of  the  rural  districts  having  not 
only  relatively  but  also  actually  declined  after  that  date. 


THE  RULE  OF  THE   CITIES  271 

Under  the  lash  of  an  increasing  industrial  drive  this 
growth  has  gone  forward  with  stunning  rapidity  in  the 
case  of  the  largest  cities,  so  rapidly,  indeed,  as  to  out- 
strip even  the  mushroom  swelling  of  the  American 
cities  of  the  Middle  West.  In  the  first  decade  of  the 
twentieth  century,  no  large  American  city  except  Los 
Angeles  grew  so  fast  as  Dlisseldorf ;  of  the  ten  great- 
est American  cities  only  New  York,  Chicago,  Cleve- 
land and  Detroit  increased  as  rapidly  as  the  slowest 
growing  German  city  in  a  similar  group.  In  1880 
Germany  had  fifteen  cities  of  over  one  hundred  thou- 
sand ;  twenty  years  later  the  number  had  been  doubled ; 
in  1 9 10  there  were  forty-eight  cities  of  this  class,  includ- 
ing within  their  hmits  nearly  one-fourth  of  the  entire 
population  of  the  Fatherland. 

"The  pace  of  thought  and  action  increases  with  the 
number  of  the  cities."  This  remark  of  Gustav  von 
Schmoller,  one  of  the  greatest  of  German  economists, 
applies  very  strikingly  to  the  changes  which  have  taken 
place  in  the  whole  character  of  German  culture.  Around 
the  institutions  which  the  men  of  the  provincial  period 
founded  within  sight  of  hill  and  valley  and  forest  there 
have  grown  up  miles  of  brick  and  mortar.  To-day  by 
far  the  greater  number  of  the  books  and  periodicals 
are  written  and  printed  in  cities ;  twelve  of  the  twenty- 
one  universities  are  located  in  cities  of  over  eighty  thou- 
sand inhabitants;  all  of  the  technical  universities,  all 
of  the  higher  veterinary  institutions  and  six  of  the  com- 
mercial universities  are  to  be  found  there  also.  The 
whole  tone  of  German  society  has  been  transformed  by 
this  tremendous  change. 

There  is,  to  be  sure,  no  lack  of  centrifugal  tendencies. 
In  Saxony  and  Rhine- WestphaUa,  in  Thuringia  and  Bava- 
ria and  Lorraine,  factories  have  been  established  away 
from  the  great  centres  of  population  or  have  developed  in 
the  small  villages  from  home  industries,  and  in  many  places 
in  Middle  and  Southwest  Germany  one  sees  the  gray  or 


272    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

red  stacks  topping  a  thick  cluster  of  trees  or  hears  the 
whirr  of  machinery  across  some  flower-strewn  meadow. 
But  it  is  the  exception  when  industries,  such  as  weaving 
in  Silesia  or  the  glass  and  slate  works  of  Thuringia, 
can  draw  workmen  from  the  cities  and  permit  them 
to  live  in  semi-rural  quiet  amid  trickling  waters  and 
thick  shading  trees.  More  often  the  Westphalian  vil- 
lage has  grown  to  city  size  and  has  begun  to  present 
housing  and  sanitary  problems  no  less  urgent  than  those 
of  the  metropolis.  Dr.  Otto  Most,  the  Diisseldorf  ex- 
pert in  city  growth,  states  that  in  191 2  one-third  of  all 
industrial  production  in  Germany  took  place  in  cities 
of  over  one  hundred  thousand.  More  and  more  has 
industry  drifted  towards  those  sections  where  coal  is 
most  conveniently  to  be  had:  to  Silesia,  to  Saxony, 
neighbor  to  the  Bohemian  collieries,  and  to  Westphalia. 
More  and  more  has  the  movement  gone  toward  the 
West,  where  through  the  digging  of  canals  and  the 
improvement  of  the  Rhine  channel,  cities  like  Diissel- 
dorf and  Barmen  have  been  made  maritime,  and  even 
once  inland  trading  centres,  like  Frankfort  and  Mann- 
heim, have  by  the  construction  of  spacious  harbors  been 
brought  into  direct  touch  with  salt  water. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  growth  of  American 
cities  like  Cleveland  or  Los  Angeles  know  the  problems 
which  rapid  growth  thrusts  upon  a  municipality:  the 
laying  out  of  streets,  where  the  building  lots  are  sold 
and  the  houses  rented  before  the  curb  can  be  put  in, 
the  disposal  of  sewage  so  that  it  may  not  contaminate 
the  homes  of  the  future,  the  problem  of  water  supply 
for  the  coming  hordes  who  make  a  system  inadequate 
before  it  can  be  completed,  the  fight  against  disease, 
corruption  and  crime.  The  German  city  builder  has 
had  all  of  these  troubles  and  others  peculiarly  his  own, 
which  are  even  more  difiicult  of  solution.  The  mainte- 
nance of  healthful  living  conditions  is  a  terrific  strain 
when  the  land  on  the  city's  periphery  is  not  farming 


THE  RULE   OF  THE   CITIES  273 

land,  but  thickly  strewn  with  villages,  whose  environs 
have  great  actual  value  as  intensively  cultivated  gardens 
and  rise  in  addition  to  such  speculative  figures  as  would 
necessarily  cut  off  the  city's  growth  outward  but  for 
active  municipal  interference.  The  problem  of  sani- 
tation becomes  exceedingly  acute  when  it  is  not  merely  a 
question  of  modern  houses  but  of  the  creation  of  Kvable 
conditions  in  rookeries,  whose  walls,  damp  with  humanity 
and  cut  off  from  sun  and  air,  have  stood  since  the  early 
Renaissance.  Yet  such  are  the  problems  which  the 
German  cities  have  had  to  face  in  varying  forms,  from 
Berlin  down  to  the  newest  mushrooms  of  industry  Hke 
Bochum  rnd  Gelsenkirchen. 

It  is  in  the  solution  of  these  problems,  in  the  building 
and  modernization  of  his  cities,  that  the  German  has 
won  his  greatest  administrative  and  technical  triumphs. 
The  same  associative  instinct  and  methodical  spirit, 
the  same  energy  and  tenacity  of  will,  the  same  inter- 
working  of  higher  education  and  capital  that  put  Ger- 
man industry  to  the  fore  have  overcome  the  difficulties 
of  city  administration.  "The  German,"  says  Friedrich 
Ratzel,  "tends  rather  to  focus  his  attention  conscien- 
tiously on  the  duty  in  hand  than  to  take  a  broad  out- 
look on  affairs."  This  statement,  so  thoroughly  dis- 
proved by  Germany's  conquest  of  the  world's  trade, 
finds  confirmation  in  the  excellence  of  German  city 
government.  It  is  true  that  the  democratic  spirit  is 
conspicuously  absent  in  the  control  of  city  affairs  and 
its  absence  is  sometimes  acutely  felt,  but  this  lack  is 
counterbalanced  by  the  absence  of  the  feudal  spirit, 
so  manifest  in  national  and  state  administration.  The 
government  of  the  present-day  German  city  is  a  business 
enterprise,  where,  as  in  the  mediaeval  city,  capital  con- 
stantly maintains  its  control  simply  because  it  constantly 
meets  the  demands  of  labor  more  than  halfway. 

The  Germans  look  back  on  a  long  history  of  successful 
city    administration.     Mediaeval  cities,  Kke   Augsburg, 


2  74    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Strasburg,  Mayence  and  Cologne,  long  before  the  day  of 
Gutenberg  or  Luther  had  developed  an  administration 
which  insured  protection  for  their  trade  caravans  with- 
out the  walls  and  by  an  equitable  adjustment  between 
the  merchants  and  the  trade  guilds — and  often  the  em- 
ployed artisans  —  brought  about  peace  and  prosperity 
within.  The  Rhine  League  of  cities,  the  Swabian 
League  and  the  Hanseatic  League  had,  before  the  coming 
of  unhappy  religious  strife  and  foreign  intervention  in 
the  Fatherland,  given  the  first  illustration  of  the  real 
unity  of  Germans  since  the  time  of  the  SaHc  emperors. 
The  Hansa  especially  stretched  its  hands  over  the  trade 
of  the  entire  north  from  Nijni  Novgorod  to  Stockholm 
and  London,  and  won  deep  respect  for  German  municipal 
power  from  every  trader  north  of  Brittany.  German 
poHtical  scientists  insist  that  the  government  of  mediaeval 
German  cities  had  no  influence  upon  that  of  the  modern 
German  city.  They  were  small  —  these  mediaeval  mu- 
nicipaHties  —  from  the  modem  standpoint,  the  largest  of 
them,  Cologne,  containing  perhaps  not  more  than  thirty 
thousand  within  its  walls.  It  is  certain,  however, 
that  the  pride  in  civic  beauty  which  wrought  the  beauti- 
ful fountains  of  Nuremberg  and  the  handsome  city  halls 
and  guild  halls  of  Ratisbon,  Strasburg  and  Leipsic 
has  been  perpetuated  in  the  noble  enthusiasm  for  the 
city's  adornment  which  marks  these  municipahties  in 
modern  times.  It  is  certain  also  that  the  spirit  of 
compromise  between  interests  and  self-sacrifice  for  the 
city's  welfare  so  characteristic  of  modern  city  admin- 
istration in  Germany  are  a  heritage  from  Renaissance 
days. 

The  change  of  trade  routes  that  came  with  the  dis- 
covery of  the  western  hemisphere  and  the  lack  of  enter- 
prise of  Hamburg  and  the  other  cities  by  the  sea,  which 
permitted  the  western  nations  of  Europe  to  monop- 
oHze  the  American  and  East  Indian  trade,  gave  the  old 
German  cities  a  staggering  blow.     The   paternal   des- 


THE   RULE   OF  THE   CITIES  275 

potism  of  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries 
found  civic  independence  but  a  hollow  shell  covering 
selfish  class  interest.  In  the  West  Napoleon's  coming 
brought  the  French  system  of  administration  to  the 
cities  of  the  Rhine,  but  in  the  North  and  East  all  traces 
of  a  rational  self-government  had  disappeared  when  in 
1808  Baron  Stein,  who  unshackled  the  serfs  and  gave 
feudaHsm  in  Prussia  its  hardest  blow,  bestowed  self- 
government  on  the  Prussian  cities.  Since  that  time 
political  progress  in  the  Prussian  cities  has  been  as  slow 
as  constitutional  progress  in  the  Prussian  state,  practi- 
cally no  advance  having  been  made  in  the  direction  of 
democracy  since  the  promulgation  of  the  celebrated 
"City  Ordinance"  in  1853,  though  of  minor  changes  of 
system  there  have  been  many.  The  other  German  states 
have  in  the  main  followed  Prussia's  lead.  In  the  thirty 
municipal  "Ordinances"  now  in  effect  for  German  cities, 
eight  of  them  in  Prussia,  differentiation  is  made  accord- 
ing to  inherited  provincial  differences  and  size,  but 
practically  all  agree  in  two  particulars :  a  sharp  restric- 
tion of  the  right  to  vote  and  a  careful  control  over  the 
city's  acts  by  the  state  government.  Under  these 
safeguards  all  of  the  German  states  allow  the  city  wide 
powers  of  legislation  and  administration.  This  essential 
difference  between  the  German  and  the  American  city, 
which  strikes  the  attention  of  every  poHtical  student,  is 
of  the  greatest  importance.  Whereas  the  American  city 
Hves  within  certain  limits  sharply  prescribed  by  the 
legislature,  the  German  city  enjoys  comparative  free- 
dom to  do  what  seems  best  for  the  communal  welfare, 
so  long  as  it  fulfils  the  duties  imposed  on  it  by  the 
national  legislature  and  does  not  by  its  action  contra- 
vene imperial  or  state  laws.  It  may  with  some  restric- 
tions acquire  land  by  process  of  condemnation,  may  buy 
and  administer  every  business  from  electric  trolley  to 
brewery  or  mo\'ing  picture  theatre,  may  build  and  rent 
any  structure  from  dock  to  dwelling  house,  and  mort- 


276     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

gage  future  generations  by  floating  bonds  to  pay  for  its 
undertakings,  —  all  without  appeal  to  the  national 
legislature,  so  long  as  the  provincial  or  district  authorities 
affix  their  seal  of  approval. 

One  heritage  of  the  past  still  cHngs  to  the  German  city. 
The  possession  of  the  right  to  city  privileges  does  not 
automatically  depend  upon  the  inclusion  of  a  certain 
number  of  people  within  its  Hmits.  The  law  does  pro- 
vide in  Prussia  and  other  German  states  a  minimum 
number  of  inhabitants  which  will  justify  a  rural  commune 
{Gemeinde)  in  being  brought  from  under  the  direct  con- 
trol of  the  Landrat,  the  lowest  officer  in  the  scale  of 
governmentally  appointed  officials,  and  promoted  to 
city  privileges;  but  particularly  in  the  industrial  sec- 
tions of  Prussia,  where  small  villages  have  swelled  to 
cities  and  cities  to  great  cities  in  a  few  years,  the  govern- 
ment has  shown  great  conservatism  in  granting  city 
rights.  On  the  other  hand,  it  sometimes  happens  that 
in  the  eastern  districts  through  emigration  to  the  more 
industrial  West,  a  city  exists  as  a  mere  shell  of  municipal 
government  from  which  the  population  has  flown.  Thus 
Lagow  in  the  province  of  Brandenburg,  with  its  495  in- 
habitants, had  in  19 10  full  city  rights,  while  Hamborn 
in  the  Rhine  province  in  the  same  year  still  administered 
one  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  as  a  rural  community, 
and  various  lusty  suburbs  of  Berlin  whose  population 
entitles  them  to  almost  metropolitan  rank  have  thus 
far  been  unable  to  obtain  government  approval  of  their 
promotion  to  city  privileges.  This  conservatism  is 
credited  by  Social  Democrats  and  Radicals  to  the  govern- 
ment's fear  of  freeing  from  the  close  control  of  the  rural 
commune  places  which  are  largely  composed  of  indus- 
trial workers.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  has  been  in 
Prussia  an  actual  decrease  in  the  number  of  cities  in 
recent  years  through  the  swallowing  up  of  smaller 
municipal  existences  into  larger  ones,  a  process  which 
has  gone  on  rapidly  in  the  more  thickly  settled  parts  of 


THE  RULE  OF  THE   CITIES  277 

Germany.  Thus  Leipsic,  which  still  kite-tails  out  into 
swarming  independent  \dllages  along  the  chief  roads, 
added  between  1880  and  19 10,  180,000  inhabitants  by 
the  annexing  process,  and  Dresden  and  Cologne  each 
115,000  by  a  similar  extension  of  their  corporate  limits. 
There  no  longer  exists  the  old  difference  of  prerevolution- 
ary  days,  when  the  city,  with  market  and  walls,  proudly 
wrote  Stadtluft  macht  frei,^  over  its  gates,  while  the 
great  majority  of  dwellers  outside  were  serfs  bound  to 
the  soil.  Nevertheless,  especially  in  Prussia,  the  pri\ilege 
of  city  government  with  its  freedom  from  the  sharper 
control  of  the  rural  commune  is  eagerly  sought  by  the 
larger  communities.  Thirty-eight  communes,  each  with 
more  than  20,000  inhabitants,  were  in  1910  still  without 
such  privileges  in  Prussia. 

Under  the  control  of  the  state  administration,  then,  the 
city  rules  itself  through  three  organs,  —  a  legislative  or 
advisory  council  of  citizens,  an  administrative  board  of 
legal  or  technical  experts  and  an  executive  head,  the 
burgomaster.  The  first  is  elected  by  the  voters;  the 
last  two  are  chosen  by  the  council.  The  first  receives 
no  pay,  while  the  administrative  board  consists  of  paid 
and  unpaid  members  and  the  burgomaster  is  always  a 
paid  official.  An  important  modification  of  this  system 
exists  in  the  Rhineland,  Hesse  and  Alsace-Lorraine.  In 
these  districts,  where  French  administration  set  its 
centralizing  impress  during  and  after  the  Napoleonic 
era,  the  burgomaster  forms  the  central  administrative 
head,  with  whom  a  bureau  of  subordinated  technical 
experts  is  associated.  This  three-part  system,  both  in 
theory  and  workings,  corresponds  very  closely  to  such 
conservative  ideas  of  government  as  prevailed  in  Prussia 
at  the  time  of  the  promulgation  of  the  Prussian  national 
constitution  in  1850.  Strangely  enough,  the  influence  of 
Prussia  has  been  so  great  that  even  states  like  Wiirtem- 
berg  and  Bavaria,  which  work  under  more  liberal  con- 

^  "City  air  gives  freedom." 


278     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE   BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

stitutions,  have  withstood  any  democratization  of  the 
cities. 

The  lack  of  a  democratic  basis  is  chiefly  noticeable 
in  the  council  of  citizens,  which  under  various  names 
{Stadtverordneten,  Burgervorsteherkollegium,  Burgeraus- 
schuss,  BUrgerschaft,  etc.)  is  chosen  for  periods  varying 
from  four  to  nine  years.  It  numbers,  according  to 
the  size  of  the  municipahty,  anywhere  from  three  in  the 
smallest  cities  to  144  in  Berhn.  The  right  to  vote  and 
the  method  of  voting  for  the  city  council  is  in  most  cases 
a  modification  of  the  usages  in  state  elections.  In 
Prussia  the  "  three-class  system"  (cf.  page  143)  may  with 
the  permission  of  the  government  be  modified  to  a  sHght 
extent,  so  that  the  smaller  property  holders  may  obtain 
somewhat  larger  representation  than  would  fall  to  their 
share  under  a  strict  appHcation  of  the  three-class  system. 
The  three  classes  under  this  modification  divide  the 
city  assessment  into  y\  for  the  first,  j%  for  the  second 
and  y\  for  the  third.  Other  modifications  with  regard 
to  the  income  tax  have  developed  a  highly  complicated 
system  for  city  elections,  which,  together  with  the  prac- 
tice of  viva  voce  voting,  brings  results  not  very  different 
from  those  of  the  elections  to  the  Landtag  and  insures  an 
overwhelming  control  on  the  part  of  the  propertied 
classes.  Thus  in  Berlin  in  191 2  one-third  of  the  city 
fathers  were  elected  by  .2  per  cent  of  the  voters,  one- 
third  by  8.3  per  cent  and  the  remaining  third  by  91.5 
per  cent.  In  Cologne  in  19 13  the  first  class  included 
I  per  cent,  the  second  9  per  cent  and  the  third  90 
per  cent.  The  oft-quoted  example  of  Essen  shows  what 
is  really  possible  in  city  elections  under  the  Prussian 
system.  In  this  home  of  death-deahng  ordnance,  where 
the  Krupp  family  owns  the  greater  part  of  the  real  estate, 
so  long  as  the  late  Alfred  Krupp  hved,  four  men  out  of 
nearly  twenty  thousand  voters  elected  one-third  of  the 
city's  representatives.  With  the  passing  of  the  last 
male  of  the  Krupp  family,  a  complete  shift  took  place, 


THE   RULE  OF  THE   CITIES  279 

six  hundred  voters  going  up  into  the  first  class.  In  the 
state  most  given  over  to  industry,  Saxony,  the  cities  are 
permitted  to  re\ase  the  electoral  law  for  municipal  use ; 
and  Leipsic,  which  in  191 2  on  the  basis  of  universal 
suflfrage  sent  only  Social  Democratic  representatives  to 
the  Reichstag,  introduced  for  municipal  elections  a 
"class  system"  as  thoroughgoing  as  Prussia's,  while 
other  Saxon  cities  have  graded  the  electorate  according 
to  profession  and  occupation.  Even  in  the  South  Ger- 
man states,  Wiirtemberg  and  Bavaria,  where  the  suffrage 
is  in  other  respects  practically  unrestricted,  the  right  to 
vote  in  city  elections  depends  on  the  acquisition  of  the 
local  right  of  citizenship  {Biirgerrecht)  wdth  an  attendant 
cost  running  sometimes  as  high  as  forty  dollars.  The 
result  is  to  cut  down  the  electorate  even  further  than  in 
Prussia.  Thus  in  Bavaria  in  1905  only  slightly  over  six 
per  cent  of  the  municipal  population  had  the  right  of 
suffrage  in  the  local  elections,  and  in  1907-08  in  the  city 
of  Hanover,  where  a  similar  restriction  prevailed,  not 
quite  four  per  cent,  as  against  18.7  per  cent  in  Berlin  in 
the  same  year. 

Property  restrictions  on  the  suffrage  and  viva  voce 
voting  with  its  attendant  duress  are  not  the  only  means 
employed  to  keep  city  administration  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  proletariat  and  smaller  property  owners.  An- 
other is  the  pro\dsion  existing  in  Prussia  and  Saxony 
that  at  least  one-half  of  the  members  of  the  city  council 
shall  own  real  estate  in  the  city.  This  qualification,  the 
so-called  Haushesitzer privilege  which  more  than  anything 
else  has  tended  to  make  the  city  a  business  organization, 
is  the  object  of  bitter  attack  on  the  part  of  the  SociaKsts, 
who  naturally  count  few  real  estate  owners  among  their 
members.  There  seems  no  doubt  that  while  it  has  worked 
benefits  in  the  smaller  cities,  the  provision  has  repeatedly 
balked  measures  of  sociological  progress  in  the  larger 
places,  Hke  Berhn,  where  real  property  is  coming  more 
and  more  into  the  hands  of  a  few  men  and  syndicates. 


28o    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Hedged  in  by  these  restrictions,  it  is  plain  that  the  Ger- 
man city  must  become  to  such  an  extent  a  business  un- 
dertaking that  politics  can  play  but  a  small  part  in  its 
government.  Bearing  in  mind  what  has  been  said  above 
regarding  the  economic  basis  of  party  division  in  Ger- 
many, it  will  be  plain  that  the  Conservative  group,  whose 
constituency  is  largely  agrarian,  has  little  or  no  in- 
fluence on  city  affairs,  and  that  the  atmosphere  of  the 
cities,  particularly  of  the  royal  residences  Hke  BerHn, 
Dresden  and  Munich,  is  hostile  to  all  feudal  pretensions. 
It  follows  also  that  the  National  Liberals,  as  the  large 
property  owning  class,  are  practically  in  control  of  the 
greater  number  of  German  cities.  The  only  party  which 
successfully  disputes  them  is  the  Centre  in  the  Catho- 
lic Rhineland  and  Westphalia,  where  Aix-la-Chapelle 
and  Cologne  are  governed  by  Clerical  majorities.  The 
injection  of  party  pohtics  into  city  affairs,  in  spite  of 
the  view  of  the  city  as  a  business  enterprise,  has  made 
the  Rathaus  in  Berhn,  Leipsic  and  many  a  South  Ger- 
man city  the  scene  of  bitter  strife.  In  defiance  of  all 
efforts  to  bar  the  proletariat  from  a  voice  in  city  affairs, 
there  were  in  1913  2753  Social  Democrats  sitting  in  the 
councils  of  the  various  German  cities,  largely  in  the 
smaller  industrial  centres,  although  the  party  counted 
in  191 1  one-third  of  the  council  members  in  Eael,  Mann- 
heim and  Stuttgart  and  more  than  one-fourth  m  Berlin, 
Leipsic  and  Frankfort  on  the  Main.  It  will  be  shown 
below  that  police  administration  falls  largely  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  city  government ;  the  administration  of 
justice  lies  also  beyond  municipal  control,  and  definite 
state  regulations  bind  local  authorities  in  local  affairs  and 
in  the  care  of  the  poor.  Thus  Hmited,  the  influence  of 
the  Social  Democrats,  aside  from  tactical  manoeuvres  to 
introduce  Socialists  into  city  administrative  offices,  has 
been  directed  toward  protecting  the  city's  employees  from 
exploitation,  increasing  administrative  efficiency  and  ex- 
tending the  field  of  municipal  ownership.     This  exten- 


THE  RULE   OF  THE   CITIES  281 

sion  of  the  communal  activities  is  directly  in  line  with  the 
party's  program  and  Socialist  city  councillors  have  led 
the  advance  in  this  direction  with  their  advocacy  of  free 
municipal  labor  bureaus,  the  sale  of  fuel  by  the  city  at 
cost  price,  the  introduction  of  free  baths  and  free  medi- 
cal and  dental  service  into  the  schools  and  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  theatres  by  the  municipaHty.  Not  a  few 
Social  Democrats  have  been  chosen  to  administrative 
posts,  though  naturally  not  in  Prussia;  and  on  more 
than  one  occasion  Sociahst  city  councillors  have  come 
very  near  choosing  a  chief  burgomaster  of  their  faith, 
notably  in  Stuttgart  in  191 1. 

It  is  the  administrative  board  that  forms  the  kernel 
of  the  German  city  government  and  more  than  anything 
else  has  made  it  a  model  of  municipal  efficiency. 
Whether  bearing  the  name  of  Magistral,  Stadtrat  or 
Gemeinderat,  whether  consisting  of  several  members 
with  the  burgomaster  or  chief  burgomaster  as  primus  inter 
pares,  or  of  a  burgomaster  with  a  bureau  of  assistants 
{Beigeordneten) ,  as  in  the  west  of  Prussia  and  in  Hesse 
(cf.  page  277),  it  is  a  body  of  technically  trained  experts 
in  city  administration,  which  possesses  equal  powers 
with  the  citizen  council  in  the  initiation  and  approval  of 
legislation  and  is  intrusted  with  the  carr>ing  out  of  all 
laws  and  statutes.  These  administrators  or  syndics 
(Ratsherr  is  the  most  general  designation)  are  in  part 
paid  employees  of  the  city,  in  part  citizens  who  serve  with- 
out pay.  Except  in  Schleswig-Holstein  and  Wiirtem- 
berg,  where  they  are  chosen  by  pubHc  vote,  they  are 
ever^'where  elected  by  the  citizen  council.  The  paternal 
poUcy  of  the  German  law  permits  the  community  to 
impress  the  services  of  a  citizen  for  this  and  other  un- 
salaried offices  and  to  force  him  to  perform  the  services 
for  which  he  is  chosen  under  penalty  of  fine  or  imprison- 
ment ;  but  this  is  almost  never  necessary  for  the  reason 
that  the  opportunity  to  be  of  influence  in  the  city,  to 
wear  the  title  of  Stadtrat  or  Stadtverordneter  and  act  as 


282     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

a  functionary  of  government  appeals  strongly  to  the 
citizen  of  leisure.  Particularly  attractive  are  positions 
in  the  administrative  board  to  men  of  pubHc  spirit  and 
technical  training  on  account  of  the  great  influence  and 
honor  in  the  community  which  they  bring,  and  the  ad- 
ministrators or  syndics  who  perform  for  years  onerous 
duties  for  the  welfare  of  the  city  without  pay  are  a 
most  important  wheel  in  Germany's  efficient  municipal 
machine. 

The  paid  members  of  the  city  administrative  board 
are,  Hke  their  honorary  colleagues,  elected  by  the  citizen 
council.  While  the  honorary  members,  however,  like  the 
coimcil  itself,  are  chosen  for  a  period  averaging  six 
years,  the  paid  administrators  are  elected  for  longer 
periods  of  from  nine  to  twelve  years  and  sometimes  for 
life.  Their  election  must  be  confirmed  by  the  state 
authorities,  but  once  elected  and  confirmed,  they  are 
thoroughly  independent  of  popular  clamor  and  prej- 
udice. Their  removal  can  be  accomplished  only  by 
legal  process,  a  rare  proceeding;  and  on  retirement 
after  a  period  of  service  they  receive  a  pension  which  is 
little  if  any  below  their  active  salary.  With  the  burgo- 
master, who,  as  we  have  seen,  may  be  simple  primus  inter 
pares  in  the  board  or  chief  in  charge  of  a  bureau  of  sub- 
ordinates, they  constitute  a  highly  trained  class  of  pro- 
fessional city  administrators,  including  in  their  number 
a  majority  of  university  law  graduates  and  also,  in  the 
larger  places  at  least,  civil  and  sanitary  engineers, 
school  experts,  medical  men  and  political  economists. 
They  need  not  be  citizens  of  the  community  which  calls 
them  to  administer  its  affairs,  but  like  other  professional 
men  they  sell  their  services  to  the  place  which  makes 
them  the  most  attractive  offer.  The  larger  cities  are 
thus  able  to  look  over  the  field  and  select  a  man  with  the 
widest  experience  in  a  smaller  place.  The  former  chief 
burgomaster  of  Berlin,  the  late  Dr.  Martin  Kirschner, 
who  retired  in  191 2,  was  called  to  the  imperial  capital 


THE  RULE  OF  THE   CITIES  283 

from  Breslau ;  his  successor,  Wermuth,  had  just  resigned 
as  assistant  secretary  of  the  imperial  treasury.  As  a  re- 
sult of  the  specialization  which  has  gone  so  far  in  munici- 
pal ser\'ice,  Diisseldorf  established  in  191 1  an  Academy 
for  Communal  Administration,  and  Cologne  in  the  follow- 
ing year  a  higher  institution  to  train  men  for  communal 
oihce.  Both  schools  justified  their  right  to  existence 
by  gaining  a  large  attendance  on  the  part  of  those  who 
would  qualify  themselves  for  municipal  work  either  as 
paid  or  unpaid  officials. 

The  administrative  board  then  brings  to  the  city 
government  a  technical  training  which  in  the  larger 
cities  is  informed  by  a  wealth  of  administrative  ex- 
perience. As  has  been  noted,  the  German  system, 
having  found  a  trained  and  satisfactory  man,  intrusts 
him  with  large  powers  of  administration  and  puts  him 
beyond  the  reach  of  those  who  elected  him.  The  board 
has  authority  to  approve  or  veto  the  acts  of  the  city 
council  and  it  puts  these  acts  into  operation.  It  works 
out  the  budget  and  prepares  the  plans  for  the  city's 
manifold  acti\dties.  Its  work  is  further  specialized  and 
facilitated,  especially  in  the  larger  cities,  by  the  division 
of  the  municipal  business  into  departments,  each  pre- 
sided over  by  a  professional  member  of  the  board  es- 
pecially trained  for  this  field. 

With  this  departmental  chief  are  associated  other  mem- 
bers of  the  administrative  board,  members  of  the  citizen 
council  and  other  citizens  elected  for  this  purpose  by  the 
council,  the  group  presenting  a  combination  of  technical 
training,  business  judgment  and  local  experience.  Thus, 
the  school  committee  in  the  larger  cities  may  be  com- 
posed of  members  of  both  organs  of  city  government, 
together  with  representative  teachers  in  the  employ  of  the 
city  and,  in  Prussia,  the  ranking  evangeHcal  clergyman, 
Roman  Catholic  priest  and  Jewish  rabbi,  all  under  the 
presidency  of  the  Schulrat,  who  is  a  paid  member  of  the  ad- 
ministrative board  and  a  trained  school-man.     Similarly 


284    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

the  finance  committee  would  be  under  the  direction  of 
a  syndic  or  Kdmmerer,  usually  a  law  graduate;  the 
building  committee  under  an  engineer;  a  graduated 
forester  would  direct  the  forest  lands  of  the  municipality 
as  Forstrat,  and  so  forth.  The  number  of  members  of 
the  administrative  board  is  usually  one-fourth  or  one- 
third  of  the  council,  the  paid  members  varying  from  one 
in  the  smallest  places  to  seventeen  in  Berlin. 

The  combination  of  technical  training  and  experience 
and  business  judgment  which  is  found  in  the  interworking 
of  administrative  board  and  council  has  shown  itself 
singularly  efficient  in  promoting  the  public  welfare. 
Their  interrelations  have  been  compared  by  poUtical 
writers  to  those  of  ministry  and  legislature  in  the  state. 
To  complete  the  analogy,  those  cities  which  have  the 
bureau  system  of  burgomaster  and  subordinates  are  Hke 
the  empire,  with  its  chancellor  and  ministers  responsible 
to  him.  Or,  since  the  German  city  is  a  business  under- 
taking, one  may  speak  of  the  stockholders  and  directors. 
It  must  never  be  forgotten,  however,  that  because  of 
their  long  tenure  of  office,  the  members  of  the  board  are 
independent  of  the  council.  Acute  differences  of  opinion 
between  the  two  are  referred  to  the  arbitrament  of  the 
state  authorities. 

This  leads  to  another  very  important  function  of  the 
administrative  board.  It  is  not  merely  an  organ  of  city 
government,  but  a  servant  of  the  state  and  empire  as 
well.  Upon  it  falls  the  duty  of  enforcing  all  imperial 
and  state  laws  not  intrusted  to  special  public  officials. 
It  is  an  important  Unk  in  the  military  system ;  it  is  in- 
trusted with  the  administration  of  the  national  insur- 
ance laws;  it  must  establish  and  maintain  commercial 
courts ;  in  certain  states,  Prussia  among  them,  it  appoints 
the  local  evangeUcal  clergy ;  in  short  it  has  thrust  upon 
it  the  enforcement  of  a  multitude  of  statutes  passed  by 
Reichstag  and  Landtag.  By  these  functions,  which  are 
constantly   increasing,   it  interlocks   the   imperial   and 


THE   RULE   OF  THE   CITIES  285 

state  administration  with  the  organs  of  local  municipal 
government. 

"The  city  is  not  outside  of  the  state,  but  a  part  of 
it."  This  theorem  of  German  administration  explains 
the  close  oversight  which  the  state  government  exercises 
over  the  acts  of  the  city  authorities.  Without  this  con- 
trol on  the  part  of  the  government  officials  one  could  not 
explain  the  wide  powers  of  legislation  and  administration 
which  the  cities  of  Prussia,  Hesse  and  Saxony  enjoy.  All 
of  the  German  states,  including  Alsace-Lorraine,  re- 
ser\'e  to  the  state  officials  the  right  to  refuse  approval 
to  any  of  the  more  important  acts  of  the  city  authorities. 
These  may  be  ordinances  not  in  accord  mth  state 
policy,  the  incurrence  of  debts  greater  than  the  com- 
munity should  bear,  the  purchase  of  property  by  the 
city  and  naturally  also  the  extension  of  the  communal 
Hmits.  In  addition  to  the  direct  control  which  comes 
through  the  approval  or  non-approval  of  acts  of  the 
city  government  concerning  these  matters,  the  state 
ofiicials  exercise  an  indirect  control  through  the  right 
of  confirmation  or  rejection  of  all  paid  members  of  the 
administrative  board,  including  the  burgomaster,  a  right 
that  is  exercised  by  every  German  state  except  Baden. 

The  organs  through  which  the  state  wields  this  power 
over  the  cities  vary  in  name  and  somewhat  in  function 
in  the  various  kingdoms  and  principahties  which  make  up 
the  empire.  In  them  all,  however,  direct  authority  is  in 
the  hands  of  the  government  official  who  heads  the 
district  within  which  the  city  Hes.  In  Prussia  cities 
of  twenty-five  thousand  and  over  fall  under  the  control 
of  the  Regierungsprdsident,  a  government  functionary 
who  heads  the  administration  of  the  surrounding  "  dis- 
trict" (Bezirk)  and  reports  to  the  provincial  authorities; 
in  the  smaller  states  the  control  of  the  central  power 
radiates  to  the  city  somewhat  more  directly.  Berhn 
is  immediately  under  a  president  appointed  by  the 
minister  of  the  interior.     It  need  hardly  be  said  that 


286     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE   BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

from  a  business  standpoint  the  city  rarely  finds  this 
control  burdensome,  the  efforts  of  the  central  authorities 
being  mainly  directed  towards  keeping  municipal  under- 
takings within  the  Hmits  of  solvency ;  but  when  it  comes 
to  a  matter  involving  poHtical  or  social  questions,  the 
government  hand  is  immediately  felt  in  restraint  of  any- 
thing that  smacks  of  radical  pohcy.  In  view  of  what  has 
been  said,  however,  about  the  restrictions  to  the  elec- 
torate, it  is  evident  that  the  crown  officials  do  not  often 
have  to  interfere  :  when  feudal  questions  are  ehminated, 
as  they  are  in  city  government,  government  policy 
rarely  runs  counter  to  the  wishes  of  the  propertied  classes, 
which  control  the  cities.  Here  and  there  personal  ques- 
tions have  arisen,  especially  in  Prussia,  where  an  official 
whose  record  smacks  of  advanced  HberaHsm  may  come 
under  the  ban.  Thus  in  Berhn,  where  municipal  wishes 
often  collide  with  crown  interests  and  where  there  is 
always  a  more  or  less  patent  feeling  of  irritation  in  the 
city  hall  against  the  peremptory  tone  of  the  crown  offi- 
cials, the  Emperor  refused  in  1898  to  confirm  the  chief 
burgomaster.  The  council  promptly  reelected  the  same 
man  and  the  Prussian  officials  as  promptly  refused  to 
resubmit  his  name  for  royal  approval.  City  and  state 
stood  with  locked  horns  until  the  council  finally  gave  in 
and  chose  another  candidate.  Dr.  Kirschner,  whose 
choice  was  confirmed  after  a  year's  delay.  It  may  be 
added  that  the  city  has  the  right  of  appeal  to  the  courts 
in  cases  where  the  line  defining  the  state's  power  of 
interference  is  not  clearly  drawn,  and  that  this  right 
is  occasionally  exercised,  especially  with  regard  to  the 
police. 

It  is  with  regard  to  the  pohce  power  that  the  centrab'z- 
ing  system  has  gone  farthest,  and  in  this  regard  Prussia 
again  leads.  It  is  not  strange  that  in  the  matter  of 
police  administration  the  paternal  despotism,  of  the 
eighteenth  century  has  projected  itself  most  forcibly  into 
the  twentieth,  not  strange  in  view  of  the  love  of  order 


THE   RULE  OF  THE   CITIES  287 

and  the  gift  for  discipline  inherent  in  German  character 
that  the  police  should  play  a  commanding  role  in  com- 
munal and  even  in  private  life.  Nor  is  it  to  be  won- 
dered at,  when  we  remember  the  military  training  to 
which  all  Germans  are  subjected,  that  this  semi-miHtary 
arm  of  the  government  should  bring  to  the  streets  and 
squares  of  the  cities  the  atmosphere  of  barracks  and 
parade  ground.  The  policeman  is  everywhere  in  Ger- 
many and  exercises  an  immediate  control  over  the  citi- 
zen in  every  phase  of  communal  Hfe.  He  is  not  merely 
a  "guardian  of  the  peace";  but  construing  his  duty 
to  protect  the  pubHc  safety  and  order  in  the  widest 
possible  manner,  he  is  the  aggressive  enforcer  of  the  laws 
and  also  of  the  numerous  and  intricate  regulations  of 
the  police  department,  which  have  the  force  of  law. 
Ride  your  bicycle  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  street  in 
Leipsic,  and  the  poHceman  Will  arrest  you,  note  your 
name  and  address,  collect  the  one  mark  fine  and  receipt 
for  it,  touch  his  helmet  and  send  you  about  your  busi- 
ness, all  in  five  minutes.  As  street  poKce,  harbor  police, 
fire  pohce,  sanitary  police,  poHtical  police,  poHce  in  charge 
of  tenements,  of  water  courses,  of  forests,  of  fields,  of 
hunting,  of  fishing,  of  morals,  these  ministers  of  the  law 
surround  the  German  citizen  Hterally  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave  and  beyond,  and  see  that  he  minds  the 
thousands  of  restrictions  and  '^Verbotens^^  which  deco- 
rate every  wall  and  fence  and  pubHc  building  and  give 
thunderous  testimony  to  the  German  sense  for  disci- 
pline. 

It  is  not  merely  in  enforcing  obedience  to  laws  and 
regulations  that  the  police  play  a  role  in  the  life  of  the 
individual  German.  The  poHce  department  keeps  the 
personal  and  vital  records,  which  even  in  the  most 
rapidly  swelling  cities  of  the  West  are  models  of  accuracy 
and  completeness.  With  the  birth  of  every  young  citi- 
zen of  the  Fatherland,  the  police  afiix  a  metaphorical 
tag  to  him,  which  he  is  never  permitted  to  lay  aside  so 


288     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE   BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

long  as  he  remains  in  Germany.  The  police  register 
keeps  careful  note  of  his  residence ;  it  notes  his  mihtary 
service,  his  marriage,  the  birth  or  death  of  his  children. 
The  poKce  follow  his  comings  and  goings  at  hotels,  they 
ferret  out  his  income  for  the  tax  collector,  they  look  up 
his  baptismal  record  in  order  to  secure  his  church  tax, 
they  oversee  his  household  arrangements  from  the 
hiring  of  the  maid  to  the  hours  when  the  garbage  is  put 
out  for  collection  and  the  garbage  can  taken  in,  they  see 
that  he  has  his  stoop  swept,  they  fix;  the  hours  for  locking 
his  front  door  at  night  and  for  unlocking  it  in  the  morn- 
ing, they  say  when  he  may  play  the  piano  and  when  he 
must  rest  from  his  playing,  they  fix  the  temperature  of 
his  water  in  the  public  bath  house,  and  should  cremation 
be  his  latter  end,  they  must,  in  Prussia  at  least,  minutely 
inspect  and  fill  out  a  report  on  his  corpse  before  burning. 
For  everything  there  are  blanks  and  formulas  in  be- 
wildering number,  and  every  error  is  tagged  with  its  fine. 
Few  indeed  are  the  Germans  or  the  foreigners  in  Germany 
who  do  not  sometime  or  other  come  into  conflict  with 
this  paternal  guardianship. 

The  rules  governing  poHce  administration  differ  widely 
in  various  parts  of  Germany.  As  might  be  expected, 
Prussia  goes  farthest  in  state  control,  while  Wurtemberg 
allows  the  greatest  freedom  to  the  individual  community. 
As  a  general  thing  in  the  larger  cities,  —  those  cf  over  one 
hundred  thousand  in  Prussia,  —  and  in  the  state  capitals, 
the  Residenzen,  the  police  are  entirely  and  directly  under 
the  control  of  special  heads  appointed  by  the  ministry. 
Even  where  municipal  control  is  permitted,  it  operates 
through  the  burgomaster,  who  is  in  a  sense  a  crown  oflacial. 
According  to  the  Saxon  law,  authority  over  the  police 
may  be  temporarily  withdrawn  from  the  city  govern- 
ment when  the  public  welfare  seems  to  demand  it.  This 
dependence  on  the  crown  tends  of  course  to  fill  the  police 
officers,  from  theBerhn  Police  President  down  to  the  most 
unimportant  poKce  clerk  in  Crefeld  or  Strasburg,  with 


THE  RULE  OF  THE   CITIES  289 

a  sense  of  independence  of  the  local  authorities  and  to 
make  the  police  force  in  a  way  an  army  of  occupation, 
ready  at  any  moment  to  enforce  the  will  of  the  central 
authorities  in  despite  of  local  f  eeUng.  This  semi-military 
position  is  further  strengthened  by  the  rigid  rules  en- 
forced by  the  state  authorities  governing  promotions, 
pensions,  etc.,  which  even  in  the  smaller  cities  of  Prussia 
and  Hesse  and  in  states  with  liberal  traditions  like 
Baden  and  Alsace-Lorraine  bind  the  hands  of  the 
municipal  authorities  and  tend  to  make  the  police  quite 
independent  of  the  city.  The  city  must  provide  a  cer- 
tain part  of  the  money  for  pay  and  pension,  —  even  all 
of  it,  in  some  cases,  —  but  the  state  everywhere  makes 
the  rules  which  govern  the  police  force. 

This  state  control  of  the  forces  of  law  and  order  is 
not  confined  to  Germany  of  course ;  in  France  and  in 
America  the  influence  of  the  local  authorities  on  police 
control  is  also  restricted  in  many  ways.  In  Germany,  and 
especially  in  Prussia,  the  government  has  assured  itself 
in  every  possible  manner  against  local  interference. 
That  the  system  has  its  advantages,  no  one  may  deny. 
The  development  of  the  military  virtues  of  loyalty  and 
impartiality  in  the  fulfilment  of  duty  are  among  them ; 
and  especially  in  the  industrial  districts,  where  strikes 
and  their  attendant  violence  call  for  police  interference, 
the  mobility  of  the  German  police  and  the  discipline  of 
its  individual  members  insure  to  the  fast-multiplying 
hordes  of  Germany's  mine  and  factory  population  an 
order  and  peace  which  may  be  found  nowhere  else  under 
similar  conditions.  The  striking  coal  miners  on  the  Ruhr 
or  the  trolley-men  around  the  Hallesche  Tor  in  Berlin 
know  full  well  that  they  have  facing  them  a  well-disci- 
plined body,  whose  sabres  and,  if  need  be,  pistols  will 
enforce  the  law  without  any  fear  of  the  political  conse- 
quences which  so  often  lames  the  arm  of  the  authorities 
in  France  and  America.  A  considerable  part  of  the 
police  force  and  a  large  majority  of  their  officers  have 


290    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

served  as  subordinate  officers  in  the  army,  and  not  in- 
frequently higher  police  officials  are  called  from  the  active 
service. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  the  independence  of  local 
control  is  carried  as  far  as  it  is  in  Germany,  it  develops 
in  both  police  and  public  a  feeling  of  dependence  on  the 
police  power  which  robs  the  citizen  as  well  as  the  com- 
munity of  sturdy  self-reliance.  Official  arrogance  is  an 
outgrowth  of  the  Ger'man  bureaucratic  system  which  is 
borne  with  increasing  impatience  by  the  advancing  in- 
dustrial democracy.  Pride  in  the  service  of  his  state  is 
an  attractive  side  of  the  German  character,  its  reverse 
is  the  feeling  of  caste  which  the  possession  of  public 
office  infuses  into  the  breast  of  even  the  humblest  postal 
or  customs  clerk.  Several  years  ago  the  national  con- 
vention of  railway  employees  at  Dresden  greeted  with 
pathetic  joy  the  permission  granted  by  various  govern- 
ments to  wear  shoulder-straps  on  the  service  uniform 
and  promised  a  more  loyal  service  in  return  for  this 
distinction.  It  is  not  to  be  expected  that  the  German 
bureaucrat  will  regard  himself  as  a  "servant  of  the 
people" ;  as  a  servant  of  the  state  the  lower  official  too 
often  regards  himself  as  the  master  of  the  people.  Among 
the  petty  office-holders  the  putting  on  of  a  uniform  means 
too  often  the  assumption  of  an  arrogant  attitude  toward 
the  civilian,  the  transformation  of  a  genial  citizen  into  a 
petty  tyrant.  The  risk  is  of  course  greater  when  this  is 
a  police  uniform.  As  a  rule  the  German  policeman,  even 
in  Prussia,  is  the  soul  of  helpfulness,  a  godsend  to  the 
perplexed  traveller  or  troubled  citizen ;  but  in  the  ful- 
filment of  his  duties  he  is  apt  to  show  an  arrogance  which 
in  trying  situations,  as  in  the  control  of  traffic  in  the  con- 
gested Berlin  streets  or  on  the  occasion  of  a  strike,  often 
degenerates  into  barracks-yard  violence,  when  the  public 
becomes  the  recruit  and  the  policeman  the  drill  officer. 

The  policeman  knows  that  his  word  is  law  and  that 
the  chances  of  the  individual  citizen  obtaining  a  hearing 


THE   RULE   OF  THE   CITIES  291 

against  him  are  exceedingly  small.  In  191 2  during  a 
trolley-men's  strike  in  Berlin,  several  foreign  newspaper 
correspondents  who  accidentally  came  into  a  forbidden 
zone  were  ruthlessly  sabred  by  the  police  under  orders 
of  an  excited  officer  before  their  taxicab  could  be  got 
into  motion  to  take  them  to  safety.  Appeal  to  the  higher 
authorities  simply  brought  the  customary  reply  that  the 
policemen  were  doing  their  duty.  The  German  police- 
man is,  as  a  rule,  armed  with  a  pistol  in  addition  to  his 
sabre.  Several  years  ago  the  Police  President  of  Berlin 
promulgated  an  order  requiring  under  penalty  that  the 
poKce  when  attacked  should  shoot  to  kill.  The  imme- 
diate result  was,  as  might  have  been  expected,  a  series 
of  fatal  accidents  to  bystanders.  In  the  view  of  the 
Berlin  press  the  order  was  not  justified  by  the  prevalence 
of  crime  in  this  most  orderly  great  city  on  earth,  nor  did 
it  do  credit  to  Berlin's  position  in  the  civihzed  world. 
Under  the  circumstances,  however,  it  is  a  credit  to  the 
peacefulness  and  kindness  of  the  German  character  that 
cases  of  poKce  brutality  are  rare  and  usually  occur 
only  in  moments  of  the  greatest  excitement. 

Another  feature  of  the  system  of  state  control  in  the 
larger  cities  is  the  constant  extension  of  the  powers  of 
the  police.  Theoretically  the  police  are  to  care  for  public 
order  and  safety;  but  it  is  easy,  of  course,  to  expand 
these  ideas  so  that  they  include  every  field  of  public 
utility  and  service.  Under  the  pohce  interpretation  of 
their  powers,  they  may  close  any  assembly  where  opinions 
contrary  to  public  order  are  being  uttered,  and  the 
extent  to  which  this  right  of  control  goes  may  be  illus- 
trated by  the  fact  that  a  poUceman  is  often  to  be 
found  occupying  a  prominent  seat  at  the  meetings  of 
university  clubs  for  the  study  of  social  and  economic 
questions,  his  presence  insuring  that  the  discussion 
will  be  scientific  and  not  political.  The  pohce  control, 
of  course,  taverns,  hotels  and  theatres,  and  all  relating 
to  them.     Naturally  it  is  in  the  larger  cities  of  Prussia 


292     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

and,  after  it,  Saxony  where  poKce  rule  is  most  mani- 
fest. They  may  object  to  the  appointment  of  any  in- 
dividual as  manager  of  a  theater,  and  they  censor  his 
offerings  to  the  public.  The  individual  or  the  munici- 
pality may  appeal  to  the  courts  as  to  the  right  of  the 
poHce  to  legislate  in  the  premises  or  as  to  the  reasonable- 
ness of  the  regulations,  but  this  is  naturally  a  costly 
proceeding  for  indi\ddual  citizens.  In  BerHn,  where 
the  police  regulations  under  the  vigorous  PoHce  Presi- 
dent von  Jagow  have  frequently  run  counter  to  munic- 
ipal feeUng,  a  poHce  order  requiring  that  ladies  remove 
their  hats  in  the  boxes  at  the  theatres  was  tested  in  the 
courts  in  191 2,  and  in  spite  of  the  claim  of  the  police  that 
the  wearing  of  hats  might  on  occasion  lead  to  excitement 
and  disorder,  the  court  revoked  the  regulation.  There 
are  many  Germans,  not  all  Social  Democrats  and  Radi- 
cals, who  feel  strongly  the  irksomeness  of  a  system  which 
in  so  many  ways  substitutes  police  rule  for  local  self- 
government  ;  but  as  a  general  thing  the  system  is  borne 
because  of  its  efl&ciency.  Especially  through  the  register 
of  the  inhabitants  which  the  poHce  keep  w:'th  such 
efficiency  in  the  cities,  is  the  convenience  of  municipal 
administration  aided.  It  need  hardly  be  remarked  that 
there  is  no  phase  of  German  life  to  which  the  American 
or  Englishman  finds  it  harder  to  do  justice  than  the 
system  of  poHce  government,  less  because  it  collides  with 
his  theories  of  local  self-government  than  because  of 
the  watchful  patemaHsm  of  which  it  is  one  ei'cpression. 
Being  assured  of  the  solvency  and  order  of  the  city, 
it  is  the  poHcy  of  the  German  states  to  give  to  the  in- 
dividual communities  complete  freedom  for  the  promo- 
tion of  the  health  and  prosperity  of  their  citizens.  This 
freedom  goes  farthest  in  Prussia,  Hesse  and  Baden,  but 
in  all  the  states  of  the  empire  the  city  is  free  within 
the  laws  of  the  state  to  attain  these  objects  in  its  own 
way.  It  has,  to  be  sure,  constantly  increasing  duties 
assigned  to  it  by  the  state  and  empire  as  their  agent  in 


THE  RULE  OF  THE   CITIES  293 

the  administration  of  the  military  laws,  the  collection  of 
statistics,  the  erection  of  commerce  courts  and  the  mainte- 
nance of  these  and  the  minor  courts  of  civil  and  criminal 
procedure,  the  collection  of  taxes  and  the  administration 
of  the  imperial  insurance  laws.  All  of  these  things  the 
city  and  rural  commune  do  as  the  agent  of  government. 
In  the  maintenance  of  highways,  schools  and  hospitals 
and  the  care  of  the  poor  the  community  acts  for  itself 
within  the  Umits  prescribed  by  state  law.  For  dis- 
bursements on  these  latter  accounts  the  city  raises 
money  by  taxation,  but  not  infrequently  the  state  inter- 
feres here  too,  removing  from  the  control  of  the  city 
important  sources  of  revenue.  Thus  in  1902  practically 
the  whole  of  the  octroi,  a  tax  collected  by  the  cities  at 
their  gates  on  certain  food-stuffs,  was  voted  away  from 
the  municipaH ties  by  the  Reichstag,  and  in  1909  the  cities' 
revenue  from  taxes  on  beer  was  practically  cut  ofif. 
Occasionally  new  sources  of  revenue  are  opened  to  them, 
as  in  191 1,  when  the  cities  were  permitted  to  take  40 
per  cent  of  the  newly  imposed  tax  on  the  unearned  incre- 
ment in  land  values. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

The  City  as  a  Business  and  Social  Agent 

The  German  city  is  then  a  joint  stock  company. 
This  company  has  at  its  command  a  technically  trained 
board  of  directors  in  the  salaried  administrators,  and  dis- 
poses as  well  of  the  voluntary  services  of  a  number  of 
stockholders  as  adjuncts  to  the  administration  and  in 
the  council.  Under  these  circumstances  the  city  shows 
itself  eminently  well  organized  to  solve  the  complicated 
problems  thrust  upon  it.  In  caring  for  the  physical 
and  social  welfare  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands  who  have 
been  added  each  year  to  the  urban  population,  these 
corporations  have  always  been  ready  to  experiment  out- 
side of  accepted  economic  theories  and  to  go  ahead  with 
undertakings  for  the  common  good  with  the  same  com- 
bination of  hard  business  sense  and  romantic  idealism 
which  marked  the  growth  of  Germany's  big  business. 
These  characteristics  have  shown  themselves  in  many 
sides  of  communal  life.  Two  of  these  are  especially 
worth  considering :  municipal  ownership  of  public 
utilities  and  the  attempts  to  solve  the  housing  problem. 

Communal  ownership  and  administration  of  industrial 
and  commercial  undertakings  is  essentially  a  product  of 
the  past  half-century.  The  German  cities  of  the  era 
of  the  Reformation  and  Renaissance  had  gone  far  in  the 
direction  of  municipal  ownership  and  trading,  it  is  true, 
not  only  in  the  purchase  of  large  tracts  of  forest  and 
arable  land,  but  also  in  the  sale  of  grain,  wine  and  beer, 
and  in  the  conduct  of  bakeries,  bath-houses  and  similar 
enterprises.  The  decay  of  the  cities  in  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  brought  an  end  to  these  enter- 

294 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT     295 

prises,  and  the  liberalism  of  the  nineteenth  century,  with 
its  narrow  views  of  the  functions  of  government,  caused 
most  of  the  cities  to  sell  their  communal  holdings.  With 
the  rise  of  manufacturing,  however,  and  the  growth  of 
the  cities,  the  spirit  of  communal  ownership  and  trading 
took  possession  of  the  municipahties  long  before  the 
state  had  abandoned  the  idea  that  the  duty  of  the  com- 
munity toward  business  lay  simply  in  the  removal  of 
obstacles  to  private  competition.  The  first  instances  of 
municipal  ownership  came,  characteristically  enough, 
through  the  exercise  of  the  poUce  power.  To  insure  pub- 
Uc  safety  BerHn  and  other  cities  early  acquired  gas  works 
and  water  works,  and  to  these  were  gradually  added 
slaughter  houses  and  pubKc  baths,  both  institutions 
essential  to  public  health. 

Once  fairly  started  on  the  road  of  communal  owner- 
ship, the  cities  sped  forward  to  the  erection  of  market 
houses  and  docks  and  the  operation  of  loading  cranes, 
electric  plants  and  public  conveyances,  before  the  German 
states  had  fully  made  up  their  minds  to  the  public 
ownership  of  railroads.  Since  that  time  nothing  has 
been  more  characteristic  of  communal  hfe  in  Germany 
than  the  expansion  of  the  city's  field  of  industry  and 
commerce.  To  be  sure,  there  is  as  yet  no  generally 
accepted  theory  as  to  what  properly  constitutes  an 
object  of  public  or  municipal  control,  except  that  it 
must  be  something  in  the  proper  and  regular  conduct 
of  which  the  pubKc  is  vitally  interested  and  something 
which  brings  no  very  great  risk  for  capital.  Under  the 
drive  of  the  rapidly  increasing  population  the  German 
has,  however,  included  in  his  municipal  enterprises 
undertakings  where  city  control  is  in  no  sense  neces- 
sary for  the  pubUc  health  and  welfare,  but  where  the 
winning  of  a  profit  for  the  community  is  the  chief  ex- 
cuse for  communal  ownership.  Such  are  trolley  lines, 
brick  works,  —  started  to  utilize  the  clay  on  municipal 
property,  —  breweries,  hotels   and   race  tracks.     Such 


296    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWG  WARS 

enterprises  as  these  do  not  properiy  constitute  mo- 
nopolies, and  in  Prussia  and  other  states  the  city  must 
pay  taxes  on  property  thus  administered,  since  it  here 
competes  with  private  enterprise.  The  entry  of  the 
city  into  the  field  of  private  business  has  not  been  with- 
out opposition,  and  such  undertakings  as  those  last  men- 
tioned are  sporadic  rather  than  general,  even  in  the 
larger  communities ;  but  it  must  be  said  that  the  op- 
position has  come  from  the  lack  of  capital  on  the  part 
of  the  city  or  doubt  as  to  the  financial  returns  rather 
than  from  any  hesitation  about  competing  with 
private  business.  Indeed  that  the  community  is  en- 
titled to  enter  the  field  of  industry  and  commerce  for 
profit  seems  to  be  fairly  well  conceded  in  Germany. 
At  the  time  of  the  urban  census  of  1908,  94  per  cent 
of  the  waterworks,  64  per  cent  of  the  gas  works  and  41 
per  cent  of  the  electrical  works  in  German  cities  were  the 
property  of  the  municipality.  In  1913  only  about  50 
of  the  slaughter-houses  in  the  entire  empire  were  in 
private  hands.  In  spite  of  the  unfortunate  financial 
results  from  the  operation  of  trolleys  by  the  community, 
municipal  ownership  has  made  progress  here  too,  so 
that  the  number  of  municipal  undertakings  was  in 
191 1  nearly  equal  to  the  private  electric  car  companies. 
Next  in  importance  are  municipal  taverns  and  brewer- 
ies ;  after  them  comes  a  list  embracing  the  widest  range 
of  business  activity.  Of  great  interest  in  this  regard 
is  the  so-called  Zweckverband,  an  association  of  several 
cities  for  common  ownership  and  administration  of 
some  public  utility.  This  form  of  municipal  coopera- 
tion, which  enables  several  neighboring  communities 
to  make  joint  use  of  water,  gas  or  electricity,  or  even  to 
run  trolleys  jointly,  has  grown  rapidly  in  the  more 
thickly  settled  districts  and  has  been  warmly  encouraged 
by  the  various  state  governments.  In  191 1  the  Prus- 
sian government  regulated  the  legal  side  of  these  coopera- 
tive alliances  by  a  special  statute. 


\ 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT     297 

These  enterprises  employ  of  course  a  great  number  of 
workers,  and  in  addition  to  the  regular  activities  of  the 
city  bring  the  payrolls  of  such  municipalities  as  Cologne 
or  Frankfort  up  to  figures  that  surpass  the  entire  turn- 
over of  not  a  few  of  the  smaller  states.  That  the  city's 
business  is  done  with  so  little  that  savors  of  corruption 
or  the  misuse  of  public  confidence  is  due  in  the  first 
instance  to  the  conscientiousness  with  which  the  Ger- 
mans look  after  the  control  of  all  of  their  organizations, 
chiefly,  however,  to  the  fact  that  the  city  is  a  corpora- 
tion in  which  the  propertied  interests  have  control. 

The  entrance  into  the  field  of  profit-winning  business  is 
only  one  of  the  ways  in  which  the  strong  social  conscious- 
ness of  later  years  has  manifested  itself  in  the  German  city. 
Here  and  there  in  times  of  stress  the  municipality  inter- 
feres and  fixes  the  price  of  food-stuffs,  especially  the 
price  of  meat,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  became  under 
the  agrarian  tariff  such  a  serious  question.  In  Stutt- 
gart the  custom  has  prevailed  of  fixing  meat  prices 
monthly  in  advance  by  joint  conference  between  the 
representatives  of  the  city  and  the  butchers'  associa- 
tion. In  191 2  when  a  great  dearth  of  meat  forced  the 
imperial  government  to  suspend  the  tariff  and  admit 
foreign  meat  under  certain  conditions,  over  two  hundred 
cities  imported  meat  from  abroad  and  sold  it  either 
through  the  butchers  or  directly  over  the  counter  to 
the  consumer,  and  several  regularly  embarked  on  the 
raising  of  cattle  and  swine  for  sale.  Numberless  smaller 
undertakings,  such  as  the  conduct  of  a  regular  milk 
business  by  Mannheim  and  the  raising  of  vegetables  by 
the  municipality  of  Barmen,  show  how  little  German 
cities  regard  the  line  which  is  supposed  to  separate 
communal  from  private  enterprise,  when  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  protecting  their  citizens  from  exploitation. 

It  is  evident  then  that  the  fact  that  the  German  city 
is  a  business  corporation  controlled  by  the  propertied 
classes  has  in  no  wise   prevented  the  fulfilment  of  its 


298    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

mission  as  a  social  organism  with  a  heart  for  the  un- 
protected poor.  In  the  care  of  the  poor  and  the  defec- 
tive classes  generally  most  German  cities  have  gone 
much  farther  than  the  requirements  of  the  state  laws, 
and  some,  like  Elberfeld  and  Strasburg,  have  worked 
out  systems  which  are  models  of  the  cooperation  of 
technically  trained  administrative  Oj6&cers  with  a  large 
body  of  volunteer  workers  among  the  citizens.  Numer- 
ous indeed  are  the  ways  in  which  especially  the  larger 
cities  have  sought  to  bring  communal  aid  to  those  en- 
gaged in  the  struggle  for  existence.  Municipal  pawn- 
shops go  back  to  the  early  Renaissance,  —  there  is  one 
in  Augsburg  with  a  consecutive  history  since  1591. 
Municipal  savings  banks  are  to  be  found  in  nearly  every 
town  of  considerable  size.  In  several  places,  not- 
ably Dresden  and  Diisseldorf,  city-owned  banks  have 
met  with  great  success  as  building-and-loan  agencies 
by  accepting  second  mortgages  on  real  estate  and  thus 
bringing  much  help  to  home  builders  in  the  chronic 
dearth  of  capital  in  Germany.  Municipal  labor  in- 
telligence offices,  which  began  with  the  first  rush  of 
labor  to  the  cities  in  the  early  eighties,  have  grown  to  a 
point  where  they  practically  own  the  field.  Strongly 
opposed  at  first  by  the  Social  Democratic  labor  unions, 
these  offices  have  shown  a  growing  tendency  toward 
a  joint  control  by  the  city  authorities  and  the  repre- 
sentatives of  trade  unions;  and  have  expanded  to  in- 
clude intelligence  offices  of  dwellings  for  workingmen, 
writing  and  rest  rooms  for  the  unemployed,  and  so 
forth.  With  a  wide-spun  affiliation  of  city  with  city 
and  city  with  rural  village,  with  a  central  clearing 
office  in  the  state  capital,  hke  that  at  Munich  for  Bavaria, 
they  make  up  a  compact  and  well-drilled  organization 
for  promoting  the  mobility  of  labor  and  fighting  the 
evil  of  unemployment  endemic  in  all  industrial  states. 
Through  the  interlocking  of  this  system  a  workman 
can  answer  a  call  to  employment  in  a  distant  district 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT     299 

with  no  more  loss  of  time  than  is  incident  to  steam  or 
electric  transportation.  By  effective  intermunicipal 
and  interstate  associations,  for  which  there  is  a  national 
headquarters  with  the  inevitable  publication  in  Berlin, 
the  Germans  have  made  rapid  progress  towards  the 
ideal  of  the  industrial  state,  —  "no  position  unfilled, 
no  worker  unemployed." 

A  further  step  in  the  same  direction  has  been 
far  less  successful,  —  municipal  out-of-work  insurance. 
This  compHcated  subject,  before  which  even  the  im- 
perial statisticians  have  confessed  themselves  at  a  loss, 
has  caused  much  perplexity  in  Germany  as  well  as  in 
England.  Leipsic  and  Cologne  tried  their  hands  at  it 
in  the  first  decade  of  the  century  with  indifferent  success. 
Several  South  German  cities,  less  antipathetic  than  the 
Prussian  and  Saxon  municipahties  to  the  Social  Democ- 
racy, have  tried  the  experiment  of  subsidizing  the  trade- 
imions,  thus  supplementing  the  out-of-work  allowances  of 
these  organizations,  but  the  compUcations  in  classifica- 
tion and  strike  situations  are  difficult,  and  there  has  been 
shown  a  general  tendency  to  wait  until  a  basis  for  imperial 
insurance  can  be  found,  paired  with  a  government  that 
will  be  wilKng  to  add  this  further  burden  to  industry. 

No  such  arguments,  however,  could  be  brought  against 
distress  work,  which  the  German  cities  have  undertaken 
with  readiness  and  with  a  really  lavish  hand.  In  such 
industrial  crises  as  1891-95,  1900-03  and  notably  in 
the  winters  of  1907  and  1909  many  of  the  larger  cities 
employed  thousands  of  men,  not  merely  with  the  time- 
honored  device  of  snow  removal,  but  in  building.  In  the 
winter  of  1908-09  Diisseldorf  incurred  a  deficit  of  fifty 
thousand  dollars,  disbursed  on  unprofitable  pubUc  works 
to  more  than  two  thousand  hunger-pinched  members 
of  the  proletariat. 

Uncounted  indeed  are  the  ways  in  which  the  munici- 
pahties have  gone  forward  to  meet  the  growing  and 
even   nascent   demands   of   the   economically   weak   in 


300    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

the  industrial  centres.  In  1906  there  were  scarcely 
twenty  public  bureaus  furnishing  free  legal  advice. 
Five  years  later  this  number  had  increased  more  than 
fivefold,  besides  the  great  increase  in  the  bureaus  main- 
tained for  this  purpose  by  private  benevolence,  all 
supplementing  the  work  of  political  and  fraternal 
organizations.  The  limit  in  this  direction  of  communal 
assistance  of  a  paternal  sort  has  probably  been  reached 
at  Halle,  where  the  head  of  the  city  statistical  bureau 
advertises  "free  consultation  to  parents"  (EUernstunden) 
on  the  choice  of  a  life  work  for  their  young  hopefuls. 

The  most  serious  problem  which  has  confronted  the 
German  cities,  not  merely  in  connection  with  the  work- 
ing classes  but  with  the  lower  middle  classes  as  well, 
is  the  housing  problem.  The  question  of  adequate 
dwellings  for  the  multiplying  millions  is  so  fraught  with 
important  consequences  to  the  Fatherland  that  it  has 
engaged  the  earnest  attention  of  economists  and  sociolo- 
gists as  well  as  of  social  workers  of  every  description. 
Germany  is  not  a  large  country,  and  land  is  a  coveted 
possession  at  best :  it  can  easily  be  seen  how  great 
the  competition  for  it  is  and  how  rapid  the  rise  of  land 
values  where  in  the  larger  cities  from  Berlin  to  Munich 
and  Strasburg  the  jostling  throngs  of  newcomers  de- 
mand shelter  and  the  speculators  step  in  to  send  the 
price  shooting  farther  skyward.  Where  in  the  fall 
gardeners  worked  in  potato  fields  and  onion  beds,  there 
rise  in  the  spring  street  after  street  of  barracks-like 
buildings,  each  five  or  six  stories  high,  each  as  much 
like  his  fellow  as  one  biscuit  box  is  like  another  and 
each  packed  from  attic  to  cellar  with  tiny  dwellings  for 
workingmen.  The  transformation  would  suggest  the 
growth  of  American  cities,  save  that  in  the  newer  parts 
of  even  the  Bronx  and  South  Chicago  there  is  an  abun- 
dance of  land  and  a  lack  of  the  crowding  which  in  the 
newer  parts  of  South  Berlin  or  the  Rhine-W' estphalian 
cities  makes  such  a  sad  impression.     It  was  stated  by 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT    301 

Professor  Rudolph  Eberstadt  of  Berlin  at  the  Evangelical- 
Social  Congress  in  191 2  that  land  in  the  tenement  dis- 
trict of  Berlin  is  eight  times  as  expensive  as  land  simi- 
larly situated  in  London,  and  in  other  large  German  cities 
five  times  as  expensive. 

The  price  of  new  land  is  not  the  only  problem  which 
dwelling  reformers  have  had  to  face.  Few  cities  are, 
like  Elberfeld-Barmen,  the  creation  of  the  industrial 
present.  Most  of  them  look  back  to  a  hoary  past, 
which  has  left  to  the  city  an  inner  core  of  old  houses, 
some  of  them  picturesque,  most  of  them  rookeries  with 
insufl5,cient  Hght  and  air,  soaked  with  the  mould  of  in- 
sanitary centuries  and  falhng  to  pieces  with  decay.  In 
these  the  poorest  famihes  are  crowded  in  ever-thickening 
numbers  as  the  outside  lands  are  built  up.  In  these  con- 
ditions, in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  city  fathers,  many 
Germans  Hve  in  veritably  Chinese  surroundings.  Pro- 
fessor Schmoller  at  a  congress  in  191 2  was  authority 
for  the  statement  that  six  hundred  thousand  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Greater  Berhn  are  packed  together  in 
dweUings  where  from  five  to  thirteen  persons  have  during 
the  entire  North  German  winter  access  to  no  other 
heated  room  than  the  kitchen.  In  investigations  con- 
ducted during  the  first  decade  of  the  century  the  sick 
rehef  bureau  of  the  Berlin  Merchants'  Association 
found  six  thousand  sick  persons  who  were  obliged  to 
share  sleeping  rooms  with  more  than  five  persons.  The 
bringing  up  of  children  under  such  circumstances  is 
of  course  a  veritable  slaughter  of  the  innocents,  and  it  is 
to  this  cause  that  the  comparatively  high  rate  of  infant 
mortahty  in  Germany  is  mainly  ascribed.  The  National 
Association  for  Housing  Reform  {Verein  fiir  Wohnungs- 
reform)  has  for  years  been  calling  for  some  imperial  or 
state  legislation,  realizing  that  the  efforts  of  the  cities 
to  meet  the  evil  must  be  inadequate.  In  the  meantime 
the  cities  have  gone  forward  on  the  road  of  reform  with 
all  the  energy  that  Hes  in  their  administration. 


302     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

The  first  step  was  naturally  the  purchase  of  land. 
With  the  forehandedness  which  is  possible  under  their 
administrative  system,  many  cities  entered  early  on  a 
program  of  land  purchase  with  a  double  object,  —  in 
order  to  hold  off  the  speculator  and  put  the  land  on  the 
market  later  at  fair  prices  and  in  order  that  the  com- 
munity might  share  in  the  increment  that  comes  with 
the  community's  growth.  It  has  been  estimated  that 
twenty-five  million  dollars  annually  would  not  more 
than  cover  the  total  of  such  expenditure  by  cities  of  more 
than  fifty  thousand  inhabitants  since  the  beginning  of  the 
new  century,  the  city  investments  amounting  to  about 
one-third  of  all  real  estate  purchases  in  places  of  this 
size.  The  process  has  gone  so  far  that  in  certain  cities 
a  considerable  percentage  of  the  entire  administrative 
area  is  the  property  of  the  municipality. 

Thus  in  1910  in  Frankfort  and  Augsburg  one-half  of 
the  land  belonged  to  the  city;  in  other  places,  like 
Strasburg,  Breslau,  Cologne,  Halle  and  Karlsruhe, 
one-fourth ;  while  Ulm,  which  early  created  a  special 
fund  for  land  purchase,  claimed  to  own  three-fifths  of 
all  the  land  available  for  building  purposes  within  the 
corporate  Kmits.  Purchases  are  of  course  not  limited 
to  land  within  the  city  but  extend  to  the  acquisition  of 
forests  and  fields  far  out  on  the  periphery.  In  order 
to  arrive  before  the  speculator  it  is  evident  that  the  city 
authorities  have  to  lay  their  plans  a  long  way  in  advance, 
as  most  of  the  German  states  sharply  limit  the  right  of 
condemnation  to  actual  street-laying  and  Eianitation, 
while  the  effort  to  bring  reserve  lands  on  the  market 
through  an  increase  of  taxes  to  a  point  where  it  is  un- 
profitable for  the  owner  to  hold  them  —  a  much- tried 
expedient  in  German  cities  —  has  done  little  to  affect 
land  values. 

The  first  result  of  this  land  control  is  that  the  German 
cities  have  been  able  to  supply  the  newer  sections  with 
public  institutions,  such  as  hospitals,  parks  and  pubhc 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT    303 

baths,  in  a  manner  which  would  be  impossible  under  the 
policy  of  buying  only  as  need  dictates.  The  beautiful 
green  spots,  from  the  larger  parks  to  the  minute  Anlagen, 
which  form  so  attractive  a  feature  of  the  periphery  of 
cities  Hke  Frankfort,  Diisseldorf  and  Munich,  are  a 
striking  testimonial  to  the  beneficial  results  of  municipal 
foresight.  Furthermore,  the  city  has  been  in  a  position 
to  put  land  for  dwellings  on  the  market  at  fair  prices, 
disposing  of  it  either  under  long  leases  or  permanently 
under  building  restrictions  which  insure  its  being  used 
for  decent  dweUings.  A  great  deal  of  land  has  thus 
been  sold  with  a  string  to  it,  insuring  to  the  city  the 
right  of  repurchase  in  case  the  purpose  of  the  city's 
entrance  into  the  market  —  the  procuring  of  decent 
houses  for  its  poorer  classes  at  reasonable  rates  — • 
is  defeated.  A  few  cities,  about  fifteen,  have  entered 
rather  hesitatingly  upon  the  building  of  small  dwelUngs, 
Essen,  a  creation  of  modern  industry,  having  led  the 
way  with  the  building  of  a  considerable  number  of  one- 
family  houses ;  but  municipal  home  building  has  as 
yet  gone  only  far  enough  to  show  the  direction  which 
social  policy  is  taking  and  the  length  to  which  the 
German  cities  are  prepared  to  go  in  solving  this  knotty 
problem  of  growth. 

That  the  safeguarding  of  the  German  family  depends 
on  turning  away  from  the  barracks-tenement  with  its 
tightly  packed  layers  of  humanity  to  the  dwelhng  of 
not  more  than  four  families  is  clearly  recognized  by 
students  of  metropoHtan  life  in  Germany,  and  many 
and  interesting  experiments  are  being  made  in  this 
field.  Two  or  three  advanced  municipalities,  Diissel- 
dorf and  Charlottenburg  among  them,  have  also  erected 
homes  for  unmarried  persons,  in  which  the  room  prices 
are  no  less  than  those  offered  by  private  enterprise  but 
the  conveniences  and  safeguards  for  health  much  greater. 
A  great  deal  of  effort  has  been  put  forth  to  reduce  the 
evil  of  renting  sleeping  accommodations  for  the  night  or 


304    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

day,  where  the  tenant,  usually  a  young  working-man  or 
working- woman,  must  vacate  the  quarters  in  the  morning, 
the  bed  often  being  occupied  by  a  night  worker  during 
the  daytime.  These  Schlafstellen  ("sleeping  spots," 
often  Uttle  better  than  lairs)  furnish  the  only  home  of 
thousands  of  unmarried  workers  in  Germany,  a  Uttle 
box  or  bundle  containing  all  of  their  worldly  goods; 
often  without  dayUght  or  sufficient  air,  they  are  the 
most  repugnant  spot  in  the  modern  housing  evil,  and 
as  yet  Httle  has  been  done  to  relieve  the  situation. 
By  a  careful  tenement  inspection  through  municipal 
bureaus,  which  also  act  as  intelligence  offices  in  finding 
homes  for  workers,  as  well  as  through  a  careful  super- 
vision of  the  means  of  transportation,  the  city  seeks  to 
mitigate  the  tenement  evils  and  to  bring  the  workers 
as  far  as  possible  into  districts  where  sunlight  and  air 
are  accessible. 

While  overcrowding  with  all  of  its  attendant  evils 
shows  itself  in  the  barracks-tenements  of  the  suburbs, 
its  worst  forms  are  apparent  in  the  inner  city.  It  is 
the  restoration  and  modernization  of  this  oldest  part  of 
the  city  which  forms  one  of  the  hardest  problems  of 
German  municipal  administration.  This  core  of  build- 
ings in  Frankfort,  Leipsic,  Strasburg  and  many  an- 
other ancient  city  offers  difficulties  which  might  baffle 
an  administration  even  as  efficient  and  powerful  as  the 
governing  boards  of  these  great  cities.  The  visitor 
who  wanders  through  the  streets  of  old  Leipsic,  for 
instance,  at  the  time  of  the  semi-annual  fair,  when  the 
narrow  streets  seethe  with  a  mass  of  humanity,  — 
streaming  through  narrow  alleyways,  surging  under 
cavernous  arches,  disappearing  into  unnoticed  crevices, 
and  bubbling  forth  from  areaway  and  cellar,  —  scarcely 
realizes  that  the  focussing  of  such  a  volume  of  trade  into 
such  a  contracted  heart  and  centre  is  only  possible 
through  the  careful  work  of  a  generation,  which  has 
removed  walls,   opened   streets,   brought   sanitary  de- 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT    305 

vices  to  courtyard  and  cellar,  and  light  and  air  to  attic 
and  alley,  —  in  short  has  converted  a  mediaeval  city  into 
a  place  where  the  business  of  an  empire  can  be  trans- 
acted. If  one  wishes  to  realize  what  the  mediaeval 
German  city  was  before  modern  technique  levelled  its 
walls  and  laid  on  their  foundation  splendid  promenades 
and  drove  streets  from  the  railway  station  on  the  pe- 
riphery through  the  outer  girdle  into  the  heart  of  the 
ancient  stronghold,  let  him  visit  the  cities  of  Italy 
where  no  such  transformation  has  taken  place  and  pic- 
ture to  himself  Frankfort  as  old  Naples  without  Naples' 
sun,  or  Strasburg  as  Orvieto  without  Orvieto's  dis- 
infecting breezes.  The  smells  which  accumulate  in 
the  courts  and  hallways  of  the  older  German  houses 
during  a  rainy  winter  or  the  ''  still,  sad  odor  of  humanity" 
that  lingers  in  the  vestibule  of  so  many  a  German  dwelling 
or  hotel  are  an  inheritance  from  the  day  when  the  town 
dweller  must  have  had  a  supreme  indifference  to  odors. 
The  cutting  through  of  streets,  the  sanitation  of 
houses,  the  conversion  of  blocks  of  rookeries  into  dwel- 
lings which  shall  have  the  required  amount  of  hght  and 
air  are  problems  which  have  called  for  the  best  technical 
skill  of  highly  trained  municipal  engineers.  In  Stras- 
burg and  Hanover  and  Frankfort  and  Cologne  and  a 
dozen  other  cities  one  may  admire  the  combination  of 
practical  sense  with  piety  toward  the  art  treasures  of 
the  past  which  has  made  the  interior  of  the  old  German 
cities  healthful  without  destro>ing  their  unique  character. 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  sanitary  require- 
ments for  new  dwellings  are  rigid  and  are  carefully 
enforced.  The  problem  of  ground  utilization  is  every- 
where a  hard  one  on  account  of  the  prodigious  land 
values :  the  German  engineer  has  studied  it  from  every 
standpoint,  not  only  as  to  the  minimum  requirements  of 
light  and  air,  but  with  concentration  on  what  he  re- 
gards as  the  key  to  the  city's  future,  the  development 
of  the  largest  possible  number  of  small  dwellings. 


3o6    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

It  will  be  clear  from  the  foregoing  that  planning  for 
future  growth  is  regarded  in  Germany  as  one  of  the 
chief  duties  of  the  municipality.  Those  who  attended 
the  Expositions  for  City  Building  in  Berlin  and  Diissel- 
dorf  in  1910  and  the  Municipal  Exposition  at  Dussel- 
dorf  in  191 2  and  similar  expositions  at  Leipsic  and 
Karlsruhe  the  following  year  were  astonished  at  the  grow- 
ing wealth  of  material  which  German  architects  and 
engineers  had  collected  as  to  city  planning  and  the  wide 
field  which  their  municipal  experiments  already  covered. 
A  brief  visit  to  only  a  few  of  the  cities  of  western  Ger- 
many shows  what  success  the  municipal  engineers  have 
already  won  in  combining  the  practical  with  the  beauti- 
ful :  Frankfort,  with  its  strikingly  practical  arrange- 
ment of  streets  and  squares,  from  the  busy  but  never 
overcrowded  Bahnhofplatz  inward ;  Stuttgart,  with  its 
graceful  draping  of  houses  upon  the  hills  along  ways  of 
serpentine  grace ;  Charlottenburg,  with  its  electric  lines 
so  bound  in  green  that  they  add  to  the  city's  beauty,  — • 
everywhere  tasteful  railway  stations,  tracks  hidden  in 
boscage,  streams  marged  with  public  utiliti«is  which 
are  carefully  concealed  behind  an  umbrageous  sky  line. 
In  these  and  other  cities  one  may  see  the  attempts 
that  have  been  made  to  carry  out  a  division  into  build- 
ing sections,  so  that  commerce  may  be  isolated  from 
residences  and  manufactures  from  both,  as  well  for  the 
health  of  the  citizens  as  for  the  convenience  of  com- 
merce and  manufacture.  That  the  German  cities  have 
led  the  way  in  this  combination  of  the  useful  and  the 
beautiful,  is  in  part  the  fruit  of  the  combination  of 
technical  training  with  business  administration,  in  part 
because  German  cities  have  had  the  problems  of  city 
growth  thrust  upon  them  so  suddenly  and  with  such 
imperative  force.  How  well  they  are  succeeding  in 
their  efforts  is  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  even  with 
all  of  the  housing  evils  the  percentage  of  mortahty  for 
the  great  cities  is  less  than  the  average  for  the  empire 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT     307 

and  even  in  the  factory  districts  of  Diisseldorf  the  rate 
is  less  than  in  the  rural  districts  of  the  Prussian  East. 
"To  build  for  health  and  commerce  is  to  build  for 
beauty."      This  motto  on  the  advance  program  of  the 
BerHn  Exposition  for  City  Building  in  19 10  has  become 
the  watchword  of  German  cities.     They  received,  in- 
deed, a  rich  heritage  of  art  from  the  Middle  Ages,  which 
not  even  centuries  of  decay  and  neglect  could  destroy. 
With  increasing  care  and  piety  the  present-day  munici- 
pahties  seek  to  preserve  what  has  been  handed  down,  — 
old  houses  with  their  Renaissance  panelling,  old  churches, 
fountains     and    monuments,  —  and     to    provide    new 
objects  of  art  which  shall  be  in  keeping  with  the  old. 
The  Germans  are  extremely  sensitive  to  the  sacrifice 
of  many  of  their  picturesque  city  quarters  to  modern 
progress,  and  the  public  watches  with  jealous  care  to 
see  that  the  xdgorous  growth  springing  up  from  the  old 
municipal  roots  does  not  destroy  the  gnarled  beauty  of 
the  ancient  stock.     Nuremberg's  inner  kernel,  with  its 
carefully    restored    buildings,    graceful    fountains    and 
neatly    washed    old    streets;    Hildesheim's    wonderful 
square,  whose  jewel,  the  House  of  the  Butchers'  Guild, 
recently  gutted  by  fire,  has  been  so  artistically  restored, 
are  Hke  quiet,  cleanly  kept  museums  whose  walls  are 
girdled  about  by  the  uneasy  pulsing  Hfe  of  the  new  time. 
It  is  only  in  some  of  the  churches  on  the  Rhine  and  in 
Bavaria  that  one  finds  mouldering  decay,  due  less  to  a 
lack  of  will   to  preserve  than  to  rehgious  differences, 
which  unfortunately  have  made  them  confessional  in- 
stead of  national  monuments. 

Not  merely  in  preserving  the  old  but  in  the  architec- 
ture of  the  new  each  German  city  has  striven  to  retain 
its  individuahty.  It  has  been  charged  that  modern 
German  architecture  is  formless,  that  buildings  like  the 
new  opera  house  in  Frankfort  and  the  Royal  Library 
in  Berhn  impress  by  their  solidity  rather  than  by  their 
grace.     This  is  not  the  place  to  go  into  the  values  of 


3o8    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

German  art ;  but  it  may  be  said  that  a  certain  solidity 
has  been  characteristic  of  German  architecture  in  all 
periods  since  the  thirteenth  century,  which  saw  the 
erection  of  such  structures  as  the  cathedral  at  Mayence 
and  the  churches  of  the  Teutonic  Knights  in  the  North- 
east. That  German  artists  and  German  authorities, 
imperial,  state  and  civic,  sinned  greatly  against  good 
taste  in  the  first  quarter-century  of  the  new  empire  in 
their  zeal  to  fill  the  squares  and  parks  of  the  Fatherland 
with  splendid  testimonials  to  the  prosperity  of  the 
present  and  with  proud  memorials  of  the  past,  cannot 
be  denied.  It  is  only  too  apparent  in  the  public  build- 
ings of  the  time  and  in  the  rage  for  monuments  which 
swept  Germany  Kke  a  storm,  dotting  market  square 
and  esplanade  with  buxom  Germanias  and  shaggy 
Kaiser  Wilhelms,  awakening  Barbarossas  and  high- 
breathing  Bismarcks,  all  of  which  overbubbling  en- 
thusiasm of  the  epic  period  of  the  new  empire  found  its 
classic  expression  in  the  sadly  squeezed  monument  to 
the  first  emperor  on  the  Schlossplatz  in  Berlin  and  the 
long  array  of  heroes  of  chronology  lining  the  Siegesallee 
in  the  Tiergarten.  All  of  these  give  evidence  of  feudal 
enthusiasm  and  military  ardor  on  the  part  of  the  ruling 
class  and  of  newly  awakened  patriotism  in  the  folk- 
soul,  but  as  a  phase  of  German  art  they  are  negligible 
and  are  quite  overshadowed  by  structures  like  the 
Reichstag  building  in  Berlin,  with  its  noble  and  essen- 
tially German  interior.  After  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century  two  tendencies  became  especially 
discernable  in  German  civic  art :  the  trend  towards 
simplicity,  and  the  effort,  which  we  have  noticed  also 
in  city  planning,  to  harmonize  and  fuse  subject  and  site. 
The  first  may  be  observed  in  such  buildings  as  the  new 
Rathaus  built  around  the  old  tower  of  the  Pleissenburg 
in  Leipsic  or  the  great  department  store  on  the  Leip- 
ziger  Strasse  in  Berlin  and  similar  business  houses  in 
Diisseldorf,  where   there  has  been  a  most   successful 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT    309 

effort  to  pair  simplicity  of  structure  with  practical 
usableness.  The  second  finds  expression  in  Lederer 
and  Schaudt's  mighty  Bismarck  in  Hamburg,  where 
on  a  bold  headland  the  titanic  originaHty  of  the  man 
springs  into  prominence. 

It  is  not  merely  in  artistic  buildings  and  monuments 
that  the  present-day  German  municipality  has  sought 
to  build  the  city  beautiful.  Amid  the  wildernesses 
of  brick  and  mortar  the  German  love  of  nature  finds 
its  account  in  park  and  cemetery.  Such  wonderful 
parks  as  the  Hofgarten  in  Diisseldorf  and  the  Rosental 
in  Leipsic  are  not  to  be  found  in  every  municipahty,  but 
there  is  none  that  has  not  expended  large  sums,  not  merely 
for  great  parks,  which  German  neatness  and  discipHne 
keep  in  perfect  order  for  the  enjoyment  of  the  many,  but 
for  the  numerous  green  spots  which,  verdant  with  grateful 
shade  and  beautiful  shrubbery,  break  with  their  waving 
poplars  the  sky  fine  of  brick  and  stone.  Here,  where 
in  an  intimate  corner  one  finds  such  delicate  appeals 
to  the  fancy  as  the  Mdrchen  figure  in  Leipsic  or  the 
Lessing  monument  in  the  Berlin  Tiergarten,  one  appre- 
ciates that  the  true  heart  of  the  German  people  beats 
not  merely  in  the  intense  atmosphere  of  the  smoke- 
snorting  factories  beyond  the  poplars,  but  also  in  the 
cool  corners  of  a  romantic  worship  of  the  beautiful. 
And  when  one  enters  the  Central  Cemetery  in  Berlin- 
Friedrichsfelde,  perhaps  the  most  beautiful  of  all  park- 
cemeteries  in  the  German-speaking  world,  where  the 
dead  sleep  under  roses  and  eternal  green,  one  feels  that 
German  sentiment  is  no  less  deep  and  the  German  soul 
no  less  responsive  to  noble  impulses  than  in  the  stricken 
days  of  a  century  ago  when  Holderlin  sang  of  Grecian 
urns  and  Schiller  called  forth  from  an  inspired  fancy 
the  theory  of  the  "soul  beautiful." 

In  the  strenuous  hour  of  his  struggle  with  the  problems 
of  existence  and  growth  then  the  German  city-builder 
has  not  forgotten  that  beauty  goes  hand  in  hand  with 


3IO    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

utility  and  health.  The  city  father  has,  however, 
often  been  reproached  with  forgetting  popular  culture 
and  those  municipal  undertakings  which  including  free 
libraries,  lecture  courses,  playgrounds,  etc.,  are  summed 
up  occasionally  under  the  insulting  rubric,  "Uplift  of 
the  masses."  There  is  no  denying  that  the  lack  of 
communal  efforts  of  this  kind  is  one  of  the  things  which 
strike  the  American  visitor  most  unfavorably.  With 
respect  to  children's  playgrounds,  the  development  since 
the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  has  been  ex- 
tremely rapid  and  has  gone  to  a  point  where  the  larger 
cities  have  provided  a  considerable  if  by  no  means  ade- 
quate number  of  grounds  both  within  the  city  and  in 
the  woods  and  glens  of  the  periphery,  where  the  youngsters 
receive  in  their  play  the  same  efhcient  supervision  that 
is  to  accompany  them  later  on  through  the  business  of 
life.  Of  libraries  there  is  no  lack,  but  they  are  usually 
collections  of  historical  and  scientific  value  and  not 
popular  Kbraries  in  the  American  understanding  of  the 
term.  In  1910  out  of  540  cities  of  more  than  ten  thou- 
sand inhabitants  only  168  maintained  municipal  read- 
ing rooms,  and  even  in  some  of  these  a  small  fee  was 
demanded  of  the  users  of  books.  Berlin,  which  has  had 
a  public  library  since  1850,  estabhshed  its  first  municipal 
reading  room  in  1896.  Only  very  recently  have  chil- 
dren's reading  rooms  been  opened,  and  these  mainly 
through  private  benevolence  in  the  face  of  the  char- 
acteristically German  argument  that  they  would  keep 
the  much  harassed  German  child  indoors  when  he  should 
be  taking  his  needed  exercise.  Some  theorists  have  gone 
so  far  as  to  suggest  that  children's  reading  rooms  should 
be  opened  only  in  bad  weather. 

Strange  as  all  of  this  may  sound  to  the  foreigner,  it 
opens  up  an  interesting  view  of  the  German  attitude 
toward  popular  culture.  No  country  has  lived  so 
completely  in  the  "paper  age"  as  Germany.  In  recent 
decades  no  three  nations  together  have  equalled  the 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT    311 

Fatherland's  output  in  books,  and  among  these  books  a 
considerable  number  is  devoted  to  popular  education. 
Aside  from  the  cheap  editions  of  the  classics  and  thou- 
sands of  paper-bound  popular  books  of  instruction  on 
every  subject,  from  penny  Chinese  grammars  to  "How 
can  I  become  an  Expert  Toymaker?"  the  great  pub- 
lishers of  Leipsic  and  BerHn  flood  the  world  with  cheap 
series,  covering  well-nigh  the  whole  field  of  modern  cul- 
ture, written  by  university  men  of  high  standing.  Then, 
as  we  shall  see,  every  city  offers  opportunity  for  school- 
ing after  the  elementary  school  in  the  continuation 
schools.  Besides  this,  there  are  museums  with  penny 
guide  books,  concerts  with  seats  well-nigh  free  and  per- 
formances of  the  best  plays  at  the  cheapest  of  rates. 
"What  then  does  das  Volk  want  more  in  the  way  of 
opportunities  for  culture?"  asks  the  German  city  father, 
who,  Kke  all  Germans,  believes  that  what  is  to  be  really 
valuable  to  the  possessor  must  mean  some  financial 
sacrifice,  be  it  ever  so  Kttle.  It  must  be  remembered 
also  that  the  Germans  are  a  homogeneous  people,  and 
that  the  Volksschule  provides  for  their  education  to  a 
point  where  at  least  a  basis  for  an  appreciation  of  Ger- 
many's culture  has  been  laid. 

There  is  no  denying  that  there  is  also  a  tendency  to 
look  upon  the  demand  for  "popular  culture"  with  dis- 
favor because  it  offends  against  class  prejudice.  Ger- 
many is  not  a  democratic  country  and  there  is  still  a 
feeling  of  academic  pride  which  makes  of  culture  a  jewel 
that  is  not  to  be  thrown  before  the  snouts  of  the  lower 
classes.  This  sentiment  is  waning.  That  it  has  not 
yielded  altogether  to  the  democratizing  influences  of 
recent  decades  is  not  entirely  the  fault  of  the  intellec- 
tual classes.  Contemporaneous  with  the  rise  of  in- 
dustry came,  as  we  have  seen,  a  rise  of  class  feehng  among 
the  industrial  workers,  replacing  the  feudal  class  dis- 
tinctions by  industrial  and  economic  distinctions.  The 
Social  Democracy  has  through  its  press,  clubs  and  lee- 


312    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

ture  courses  done  much  for  popular  culture ;  but  by  the 
organization  of  a  class  consciousness  it  has  sealed  up  the 
wells  of  private  benevolence,  which  are  usually  the  first   1 
sources  from  which  free  libraries  and  lecture  courses 
come. 

There  is  also  something  in  the  argument  of  Dr.  Most 
of  Diisseldorf ,  who  in  discussing  this  question  says : 
"It  is  a  monstrosity  to  offer  a  man  Hbraries  and  con- 
certs who  is  not  in  a  position  to  provide  himself  with 
a  decent  home,  clothes  and  food."  ^  The  economic  and 
social  problems  which  came  with  the  rapid  growth  of 
the  cities  have  chained  the  attention  of  German  com- 
munities and  tied  up  their  resources  to  such  an  extent 
that  the  less  urgent  duties  have  had  to  be  neglected. 
That  an  awakening  has  come,  however,  with  regard 
to  the  right  of  the  masses  to  something  more  than 
drilKng  for  Hfe  as  industrial  machines  is  apparent  on 
many  sides.  Following  the  lead  of  the  Vienna  univer- 
sity, the  German  universities  at  last  took  up  the  matter 
of  extension  work  and  proceeded  to  give  it  the  same  slow 
but  careful  and  methodical  development  that  they 
have  given  to  other  sides  of  education.  In  1912  fifteen 
universities  and  eight  technical  universities  were  assist- 
ing in  this  work.  Free  lecture  courses  on  scientific  and 
literary  subjects,  with  abundant  opportunities  for  prac- 
tical exercises,  were  organized  by  the  Humboldt  and 
Lessing  Academies  in  BerHn  and  the  Humboldt  Academy 
in  Breslau  and  by  similar  organizations  in  Frankfort 
and  Hamburg.  As  yet,  however,  the  municipahty 
plays  only  a  small  part  in  these  endeavors.  In  191 1 
only  sixty-four  German  cities  gave  or  assisted  in  giving 
public  lecture  courses,  with  the  expenditure  of  about 
twenty  thousand  dollars.  Six  cities,  however,  had 
estabHshed  or  contributed  largely  to  the  establishment 
and  support  of  commercial  universities  {Handelshoch- 
schulen),  which  attracted  students  from  every  civilized 

^  Die  detttsche  Stadt  wid  ihre  Verwallimg.    Vol.  3. 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT    313 

land ;  and  courses  of  university  grade  have  been  given 
in  Hamburg  and  Frankfort  by  institutes  supported 
by  the  municipaHty.  It  is  of  interest  to  note  that 
these  courses  gave  birth  in  Frankfort  to  the  first 
municipal  university  in  Germany,  a  non-theological 
institution,  which  opened  its  doors  in  October,  191 4, 
and  bids  fair  to  introduce  some  radical  departures 
from  the  conservative  usages  of  its  staid  sister  insti- 
tutions. 

To  one  side  of  popular  culture  the  German  cities  have 
from  the  beginning  devoted  considerable  care  and  money, 
—  to  the  cultivation  of  music  among  the  masses.  Mu- 
sical standards  are  high,  even  amongst  the  poorest  classes ; 
and  instead  of  municipal  golf  Hnks  and  athletic  fields, 
the  German  workman  has  had  his  music  supphed  by 
the  municipality  for  many  years,  either  free  or  at  a 
nominal  cost.  Aside  from  the  open  air  concert  fur- 
nished on  Sundays  and  holidays  by  the  local  military 
band  on  the  pubhc  square  in  every  place  that  boasts 
of  the  neighborhood  of  a  barracks,  a  great  number  of 
the  larger  cities,  nearly  one-half  of  those  over  twenty 
thousand  in  191 1,  support  pubhc  concerts  in  halls  or 
gardens,  for  which  the  admission  is  very  small,  usually 
from  five  to  twelve  and  one-half  cents.  For  this  pur- 
pose over  half  a  milHon  dollars  was  spent  by  these 
municipahties  in  1 9 1 1 .  More  than  seventy  of  the  greater 
German  cities  have  orchestras,  whose  members  are  paid 
and  on  retirement  pensioned  by  the  city,  and  there  is 
as  keen  a  rivalry  between  cities  of  the  same  rank  for 
possession  of  the  best  musical  equipment  as  there  is  in 
the  beautification  of  parks  and  squares  and  in  the  care 
of  streets  and  drainage.  And  it  need  scarcely  be  said 
that  the  programs  of  these  cheap  concerts  are  no  less 
classical  than  those  offered  to  the  patrons  of  the  Palmen- 
garten,  the  aristocratic  resort  in  Frankfort,  or  the 
fashionable  restaurants  on  the  Friedrichstrasse  and 
Unter  den  Linden  in  Berlin. 


314    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

The  German  city  administrator  recognizes  that  good 
music  is  as  much  a  necessity  as  good  air  and  water.  He 
also  believes  in  the  theatre  as  an  educational  institution. 
The  rich  patronage  which  the  German  courts  have 
always  extended  to  the  theatre,  and  which  costs  the 
monarchs  in  Berlin,  Dresden,  Munich  and  the  other 
capitals  of  the  empire  considerable  sums  annually,  has 
been  assumed  by  the  municipality  in  all  cities  which  have 
advanced  to  theatre  rank,  including  many  communities 
of  very  small  size.  Many  of  these  own  their  own 
theatres,  where  opera  during  the  season  and  dramas  are 
given  usually  through  a  lessee,  the  city  retaining  a 
voice  in  the  control  of  performance  and  program  and 
subsidizing  the  undertaking  as  far  as  the  municipal 
budget  will  allow.  For  this  purpose  164  German  cities 
spent  in  191 1  over  one  and  one-half  million  dollars. 
The  pressure  upon  the  city  fathers  for  the  improvement 
of  the  theatre  is  always  strong,  especially  from  the  Social 
Democrats,  who  as  a  matter  of  policy  advocate  direct 
municipal  management  and  a  larger  outlay  for  theatrical 
purposes.  Special  performances  at  very  lov^  prices 
are  given  at  intervals  during  the  year  at  the  municipal 
theatres,  the  tickets  being  usually  distributed  through 
clubs  and  associations,  whose  members  enjoy  free  ad- 
mission in  return  for  a  small  club  appropriation.  As  a 
matter  of  course  the  best  artists  in  the  direct  or  indirect 
employ  of  the  city  figure  in  these  popular  productions ; 
occasionally  travelling  companies  of  high  artistic  merit, 
like  that  from  the  Ducal  Theatre  in  Weimar,  are  en- 
gaged. Of  the  133  theatres  which  gave  performances 
of  this  kind  in  191 1,  a  number  gave  special  performances 
of  classical  plays  for  children,  with  a  free  distribution  of 
tickets  in  the  Volksschulen;  and  if  one  would  learn  what 
part  the  founders  of  the  German  stage  like  Lessing  and 
Schiller  or  later  artists  like  Grillparzer  and  Freytag  play 
in  modern  German  education,  one  needs  only  to  give 
himself  the  delightful   experience   of    sitting  amid  the 


THE  CITY  AS  A  BUSINESS  AND  SOCIAL  AGENT     315 

bubbling  enthusiasm  of  Young  Germany  during  the 
performance  of  Tell  or  Minna  von  Barnhelm  or  the 
Journalisten.  A  few  cities,  like  Altona,  for  the  most 
part  smaller  places,  have  estabhshed  municipal  moving 
picture  theatres  in  order  to  sanitate  and  elevate  this 
important  means  of  amusement  and  education. 

Among  tendencies  in  the  trend  toward  an  education 
which  shall  not  merely  spell  utiUty  must  be  mentioned 
the  effort  to  make  the  museums  increasingly  useful 
to  the  masses.  Rare  indeed  is  the  small  German  city 
which  does  not  through  the  opening  to  the  public  on 
certain  days  of  school  or  institutional  collections  or 
through  a  small  municipal  museum  offer  opportunity 
to  see  at  least  a  collection  of  casts  of  ancient  works  of 
art  and  a  few  pictures  of  merit.  The  larger  cities 
which  enjoy  the  possession  of  older  galleries  devote  each 
year  increasing  sums  to  the  support  of  their  collections. 
Here  as  elsewhere  the  old  centrifugal  tendencies  in 
Germany  worked  to  the  advantage  of  places  which 
though  now  far  from  the  imperial  or  state  centre,  still 
retain  collections  dating  from  the  munificence  of  some 
petty  dynasty  long  since  mediatized  or  expelled.  Thus 
the  student  who  would  know  Germany's  holdings  of  the 
world's  masterpieces  must  \'isit  not  only  Berlin,  Dresden 
and  Munich,  but  also  Cassel  and  Diisseldorf.  To  these 
older  collections  modern  civic  wealth,  spurred  on  by 
civic  pride,  has  added  such  collections  as  those  in  the 
city  galleries  at  Frankfort  and  Leipsic.  Thus  the 
cities,  not  one  or  two,  but  a  dozen,  are  bidders  for  works 
of  art,  and  load  their  budgets  with  items  for  this  pur- 
pose which  a  century  ago  would  have  stocked  the 
Dresden  gallery.  Up  to  recent  years  no  special  effort 
had  been  put  forth  to  make  these  collections  usable 
for  the  great  public,  beyond  opening  the  galleries  with- 
out charge  on  certain  days  in  the  week.  Since  1900, 
however,  a  great  movement  has  spread  with  the  watch- 
words, "art  for  everybody,"    "art  in  daily  life"  and 


3i6    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

"art  in  the  life  of  the  child."  One  result  has  been  that 
several  cities  have  made  an  effort  to  increase  the  use  of 
the  city  collections  by  the  "unartistic"  classes  by  the 
addition  of  cheap  books  of  information  to  the  formi- 
dable and  expensive  catalogues  and  the  introduction  of 
lecture  courses  with  expert  guidance  through  the  gal- 
leries. 


CHAPTER  XV 

Conservatism  and  Progress  in  Education 

Goethe  once  remarked  that  every  writer  whom  the 
Germans  admire  is  a  great  teacher.  He  might  have 
gone  further  and  said  that  every  German  of  full  moral 
stature  is  a  natural  pedagogue.  There  is  something  in 
the  German  character,  with  its  gift  for  method  and  its 
innate  sense  of  discipKne,  which  makes  the  Germans 
as  a  nation  the  best  teachers  and  scholars  in  the  world, 
something  which  makes  of  the  empire  a  vast  school- 
house  in  which  every  age  and  rank  teaches  and  is  taught. 
Everywhere  within  the  national  boundary  posts  rule 
the  order  and  regularity  of  the  model  school  with  its 
system  of  merit  and  demerit,  of  absolute  rule  and  un- 
questioning obedience,  varied  by  \dolent  and  immature 
protest,  which  in  the  end  invariably  yields  to  better 
counsels  of  order  and  discipHne.  This  love  of  order, 
the  gift  for  discipKne  and  submergence  of  the  individual 
will,  the  reverence  for  the  traditional,  all  of  which  find 
their  expression  poHtically  in  the  submission  of  a  people 
of  the  highest  moral  development  occupying  the  apex 
of  modern  culture  to  a  government  which  is  still  ab- 
solutist and  semi-feudal,  show  a  brilHant  reverse  in 
the  efficiency  of  the  nation's  social  and  business  or- 
ganization. The  colossal  mihtary  system  with  its 
machine-Kke  order,  the  well-ordered  administration  of 
every  form  of  associative  effort  from  the  city  of  Berlin 
to  the  humblest  rural  consumers'  league  in  Pomerania 
or  Silesia,  the  organization  of  industry  and  commerce 
which  brought  Germany  in  less  than  half  a  century  to 
the  second  place  among  exporting  and  carrying  powers, 

317 


3i8    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

—  all  derive  their  efficiency  from  the  German  ability 
to  "take  training,"  all  reflect  in  a  way  the  methods  of 
the  school,  as  indeed  all  are  closely  associated  with 
Germany's  vast  school  system. 

It  is  not  merely  that  from  the  Renaissance  down  we 
find  a  German  name  to  place  beside  one  chosen  from  any 
other  race  to  adorn  the  Hst  of  great  teachers.  Such  men 
as  Melanchthon,  Leibniz,  Fichte  and  Wilhelm  von 
Humboldt  are  not  sporadic  offshoots  of  the  race  but  the 
normal  product  of  racial  development.  Their  work  is 
intertwined  with  the  whole  history  of  Germany's  rise  to 
greatness.  On  the  other  hand,  there  has  hardly  been  a 
great  German  from  Luther  to  Frederick  the  Great  and 
Bismarck  who  has  not  built  himself  in  some  way  into 
the  nation's  school  system.  Even  the  petty  despots  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  with  their  dissolute  lives  and 
cynical  scorn  of  the  public  welfare,  took  good  and  gener- 
ous care  of  the  schools.  One  of  them,  Schiller's  ancestral 
tyrant,  Karl  Eugen  of  Wiirtemberg,  sold  his  peasants 
to  fight  French  battles  and  loaded  down  the  hills  about 
Stuttgart  with  lavish  structures  paid  for  by  the  blood 
and  sweat  of  his  subjects,  and  yet  in  the  days  of  his 
broken  tyranny  gave  himself  up,  like  another  broken 
tyrant,  the  younger  Dionysius  of  Syracuse,  to  an  enthu- 
siasm for  teaching. 

The  school  is  no  less  intertwined  with  the  nation's 
present  than  with  its  past.  Every  part  of  Germany's 
system  is  dependent  on  the  school  and  interlocked  with 
it;  even  the  highest  birth  and  greatest  wealth  are  un- 
avaihng  to  win  real  place  in  the  intricate  mechanism  of 
the  nation's  government  or  industry  unless  the  holder 
has  at  least  gone  through  the  form  of  a  regular  prepara- 
tion in  the  higher  institutions  or  the  technicpJ  schools. 
Like  the  army,  the  school  does  allow  special  privileges 
to  those  who  have  name  and  wealth,  but  like  the  army 
it  is  also  democratic  in  permitting  no  one,  whatever 
his  birth  or  means,  to  escape  its  discipline.     It  applies 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS  IN  EDUCATION    319 

its  acid  test  to  all  who  pass  through  its  hands  and  marks 
them  indehbly  as  "good,"  "fair"  or  "deficient."  And 
as  the  Germans  feel  that  the  army  guarantees  their 
national  existence  from  without,  so  the  school  is  the 
sheet  anchor  of  Germany's  greatness  within.  Not  only 
must  every  German  attend  school,  but  every  one  who 
aspires  to  be  more  than  a  mere  laborer  or  lay  figure  in 
the  nation's  progress  must  make  school  the  serious 
business  of  his  life,  for  throughout  Ufe  he  is  tagged  with 
the  results  of  his  schooUng.  It  has  been  often  said  that 
the  Kfe  of  the  German  boy  of  class  is  a  hurdle  track  of 
examinations,  each  of  them  no  formal  paper  test,  but  the 
fitting  climax  of  years  of  effort.  At  sixteen  years  of 
age  or  thereabouts  comes  the  "  volunteer  examination," 
which  allows  him  the  privilege  of  one  year's  service  in  the 
army  as  a  volunteer  instead  of  two  years  as  a  conscript ; 
upon  that  follows  three  years  later  the  graduation  exami- 
nation, which  frees  him  from  the  school  and  admits  him 
to  the  universities  and  preparation  for  a  learned  career. 
On  these  follow  the  doctor  examination  winning  the  title 
so  necessary  for  a  full  place  in  the  intellectual-social 
system,  and  the  state's  examination,  finally  admitting 
Mm  to  his  profession.  In  addition  the  technical  students 
and  the  young  disciples  of  medicine  and  law  have  their 
university  path  and  professional  apprenticeship  strewn 
with  practical  tests.  Each  examination  is  conscientiously 
conducted,  and  the  professional  man  goes  through  life 
tagged  with  the  result  of  each.  Once  entered  upon  a 
career  higher  than  that  of  a  mere  hewer  of  wood  and 
drawer  of  water,  there  is  no  avoiding  the  hurdles,  and 
if  the  unfortunate  candidate  knocks  one  over  or  tips  it, 
the  fact  is  at  once  noted,  and  he  is  lucky  if  it  is  not 
henceforth  a  serious  handicap  to  him  in  the  course  of 
life.  He  may  try  again,  but  a  second  success  cannot 
wipe  out  the  memory  of  the  first  failure. 

The  intricacy  of  the  German  school  system  is  natural 
in  view  of  its  age  and  of  the  complex  interests  to  be 


320    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

served.  School  organization  and  administration  is  con- 
servative everywhere,  and  in  a  country  like  Germany, 
where,  as  has  been  said,  not  altogether  waggishly,  one- 
half  of  the  people  are  busy  teaching  and  giving  examina- 
tions to  the  other  half,  the  schools  are  so  interwoven  with 
the  national  life  that  they  are  inextricably  mixed  up 
with  age-old  social,  confessional  and  racial  problems, 
some  of  which  must  wait  yet  many  generations  for  a 
solution.  The  result  is  that  the  educational  system  in 
Germany  is  like  a  time-honored  building,  which  has  had 
a  wing  added  here  and  a  window  punched  yonder,  with 
marks  still  remaining  from  the  removal  of  unsightly 
parts,  so  that  the  whole  makes  on  the  observer  the  im- 
pression of  a  structure  that  is  extremely  efficient,  though 
formless  and  in  places  much  in  need  of  repair.  Only  a 
few  experts  know  their  way  around  in  the  rambling 
building,  and  even  these  are  unwilling  to  trust  them- 
selves into  some  of  its  nooks  and  crannies  without  the 
guidance  of  the  minister  of  education  or  some  one  of  his 
satraps. 

Each  biennial  meeting  of  the  great  elementary  teachers' 
federation,  the  Deutscher  Lehrerverein,  which  had  in 
19 14  over  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  members, 
calls  for  a  reform  and  a  codification  of  the  school  laws 
in  the  larger  German  states.  The  convention  of  the 
association  in  Diisseldorf  in  1908  demanded  an  imperial 
law  which  should  take  school  affairs,  like  the  military, 
the  post  and  the  telegraph,  largely  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  individual  states.  This  call  for  a  stronger  central- 
ization in  school  affairs  has  found  few  echoes  in  Ger- 
many, since  there  are  many  who  believe  that  the  highly 
diversified  character  of  the  empire  requires  that  abun- 
dant freedom  should  be  left  not  only  to  the  individual 
states  but  to  the  local  school  authorities  as  v/ell.  It  is 
therefore  not  altogether  a  misfortune  tJiat  political  and 
confessional  rivalries  in  the  two  largest  German  states, 
Prussia  and  Bavaria,  have  thus  far  prevented  any  simpli- 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS  IN  EDUCATION    321 

fication  and  unification  of  the  school  laws  and  will  doubt- 
less long  continue  to  stand  in  the  way  of  such  a  move. 
As  a  result  of  the  lack  of  legislation  both  of  these  states 
intrust  their  ministers  of  education  with  wide  authority, 
and  the  regulations  issued  by  the  ministry  have  piled 
up  into  a  mass  of  precedent  which  is  about  as  binding 
as  law. 

The  lack  of  a  broad  basis  of  law  is  particularly  felt  in 
the  case  of  the  Volksschide,  the  elementary  school,  upon 
which  approximately  94  per  cent  of  all  Germans  are  de- 
pendent for  their  education.  The  growing  spirit  of 
democracy  which  we  have  noticed  in  so  many  other 
phases  of  German  life  demands  that  all  children  should 
be  required  to  attend  the  Volksschide,  and  that  the  way 
be  opened  for  the  graduates  of  the  Volksschide  into  the 
secondary  school  system  and  from  there  into  the  higher 
callings.  To  the  demand  for  a  greater  democratization 
of  the  elementary  schools  is  added  that  of  the  schoolmen 
for  a  greater  elasticity  in  the  program  of  studies,  and 
another,  emanating  from  representatives  of  many  classes, 
for  the  entire  secularization  of  the  schools,  or  at  least 
for  a  removal  of  church  supervision  of  religious  teaching. 
In  the  fight  for  the  unburdening  of  the  schools  from 
religious  instruction  many  of  those  interested  in  the 
secondary  schools  have  also  joined.  Secondary  educa- 
tion, which  has  practically  won  the  fight  waged  since 
1890  for  breaking  the  monopoly  of  the  classical  Gym- 
nasium and  the  admission  of  modem  culture  as  repre- 
sented by  the  natural  sciences  and  the  modern  languages 
to  equal  rank  with  the  so-called  humanities  as  a  prepara- 
tion for  the  professions,  demands  with  increasing  insist- 
ence to  be  freed  from  all  religious  guardianship.  Add  to 
these  manifestations  of  the  growth  of  a  new  spirit  the 
rise  of  technical  education,  the  demand  for  greater  facili- 
ties for  manual  training  and  the  yearning  for  more 
individualism  in  the  work  of  both  teacher  and  pupil  as 
an  offset  to  the  growing  bureaucracy  of  administration, 


322     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

and  we  have  some  of  the  reforms  which  occupy  the 
minds  of  those  who  have  been  working  for  a  greater 
adaptation  of  the  work  of  the  schools  to  the  forward 
movement  of  the  nation.  More  insistent  still  in  their 
demands  on  the  purse  of  the  nation  are  the  continuation 
schools,  which  extend  over  the  whole  field  of  practical, 
vocational  instruction  and  occupy  the  young  army  of 
Germany's  workers  from  two  to  five  years  after  leaving 
the  Volksschule.  This  graduate  instruction  of  the  working 
class  has  taken  on  ever  greater  proportions  and  represents 
Germany's  greatest  advance  in  the  educational  field  since 
the  beginning  of  the  new  century. 

Such  a  glance  as  that  which  we  have  just  taken  at  the 
tendencies  of  progress  in  matters  of  education  in  Germany 
shows  the  intricacy  of  the  system  by  which  the  Germans 
have  won  first  place  among  the  greater  nations  in  the 
matter  of  schools.  The  foundation  of  this  system  is 
the  Volksschule,  which  is  in  the  truest  sense  of  the  word 
the  basis  of  the  nation's  greatness.  The  success  of  the 
Volksschule  has  been  said  to  rest  upon  two  fac^-ors :  the 
severe  professional  training  of  the  teachers,  to  whom 
the  state  assures  a  fijced  and  permanent  appointment 
at  a  living  wage  with  a  fair  pension,  and  the  rigid  carry- 
ing out  of  the  law  compelling  parents  to  send  their  chil- 
dren to  school.  By  the  former  the  schools  are  assured 
of  a  fairly  adequate  number  of  male  teachers  who  have 
been  trained  for  six  years  for  the  profession,  by  the 
latter  the  German  child  is  led  to  look  upon  the  attendance 
on  school  for  eight  years  during  approximately  forty- 
eight  weeks  of  the  year  as  fixed  and  unavoidable  a 
requirement  of  nature  as  the  coming  and  going  of  the 
seasons. 

Since  the  days  of  Frederick  the  Great  education  has 
been  compulsory  in  Prussia.  The  same  requirement 
has  long  prevailed,  of  course,  in  all  of  the  German  states, 
and  begins  practically  everywhere  with  the  sixth  year, 
continuing    until    the    fourteenth.     Wherever,    as    in 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS  IN  EDUCATION     323 

Bavaria,  schooling  covers  only  the  thirteenth  year,  the 
child  is  not  permitted  to  leave  school  until  he  has  passed 
an  examination  showing  that  the  required  work  has 
been  properly  done.  So  thoroughly  do  the  German  ad- 
ministrative officers  enforce  this  requirement  that  il- 
literacy has  practically  disappeared  within  the  black- 
white-red  boundary  posts,  scarcely  one  in  two  thousand 
conscripts  drawn  in  for  service  at  twenty  years  of  age 
being  without  schooling.  WTiat  the  Volksschule,  the 
continental  parallel  of  New  England's  Uttle  red  school- 
house,  has  done  since  the  days  of  the  great  Frederick  in 
nationahzing  the  eastern  pro\'inces  of  Prussia  has  been 
indicated  in  a  previous  chapter.  In  order  to  study  its 
effectiveness  one  needs  only  to  compare  the  educational 
equipment  of  the  natives  of  the  neighboring  provinces 
of  Belgium,  Austria  and  Russia  with  that  of  the  German 
worker,  who  of  whatever  condition  in  life,  can  always 
read  and  write  and  has  mastered  the  elements  of  mathe- 
matics, geography  and  the  history  of  his  native  land. 
In  1899  the  German  fleet  visited  Vigo  in  Spain,  where 
several  Spanish  cruisers  were  anchored.  During  the 
fraternizing  of  the  jackies  of  the  two  nations  mail  was 
delivered  to  the  German  sailors  from  their  consulate. 
Great  was  the  astonishment  of  the  Spaniards  when  every 
German  tar  received  mail  and  their  marvelling  passed 
all  bounds  when  it  was  seen  that  each  one  proceeded  to 
open  and  read  his  own  letters. 

Rare  indeed  is  the  German  child  who  escapes  the 
school.  He  enters  its  portals  in  obedience  to  a  law  as 
inevitable  as  the  coming  of  the  equinoxes ;  once  there, 
his  training  goes  forward  in  the  elements  of  knowledge, 
with  the  constant  by-products  of  religion  and  patriotism, 
with  military  regularity  and  precision.  The  German 
elementary  teacher  takes  his  place  beside  the  German 
drill  sergeant  as  the  foundation  of  the  nation's  unique 
position  in  the  world.  In  addition  to  the  idealism 
which  makes  the  teacher  the  world  over  willing  to  lay 


324    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

up  for  himself  treasures  of  a  sort  not  to  be  deposited  in 
banks,  the  German  Volksschule  teacher  enjoys  a  prepara- 
tion for  his  work  which  gives  him  a  unique  position 
when  compared  with  those  of  his  craft  elsewhere.  No 
elementary  teacher  in  the  service  of  the  German  state 
''happens"  into  the  profession;  none  uses  it  merely  as 
a  stepping  stone  to  some  other  life  work.  The  candidate 
for  a  teacher's  position  after  graduation  from  the  Volks- 
schttle  sp>ends  three  or  more  years  in  a  preparatory  institu- 
tion, which  is  in  most  cases  a  state  school,  and  then  three 
years  more  in  a  state  seminary.  If  he  enjoys  a  stipend, 
as  many  do,  during  the  years  of  instruction,  he  binds 
himself  to  enter  the  state's  service  as  teacher ;  in  any 
case  he  finds  himself  at  twenty  years  of  age  with  other 
professions  closed  to  him,  but  with  a  thorough  equip- 
ment for  his  life's  work  in  giving  elementary  instruction 
to  Young  Germany.  When  he  enters  the  state's  service, 
his  salary  is  small,  —  the  average  for  Germany  is  under 
five  hundred  dollars  a  year,  —  but  so  long  as  he  performs 
his  duties  and  keeps  free  from  Radical  or  Socialist  en- 
tanglements, his  position  is  secure  for  life ;  he  is  entirely 
independent  of  political  changes,  and  on  retirement  he 
enjoys  a  pension  which  enables  him  to  face  the  future 
without  misgivings.  He  may  find  opportunities  for 
university  study,  it  is  possible  to  become  the  principal 
of  a  school,  and  in  some  cases  —  though  not  in  Prussia 
—  school  inspector ;  but  as  a  general  thing  the  higher 
walks  of  the  profession  are  closed  to  him  with  the  finality 
of  the  German  system  of  specialization,  which  decides 
the  future  of  every  boy  before  he  is  well  into  long  trousers. 
The  primary  school-teacher  would  not  be  a  German  if 
he  did  not  love  his  work  and  give  himself  up  to  it  with 
devotion.  His  peculiar  training  has  given  him  what 
teachers  the  world  over  most  lack,  a  pride  in  profession, 
an  esprit  de  corps,  which  may  chafe  under  feudal  and 
clerical  restrictions  but  is  sincerely  religious  and  devotedly 
patriotic. 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS  IN  EDUCATION    325 

Naturally  the  rapid  growth  of  Germany's  population 
has  put  a  tremendous  strain  upon  the  elementary  school 
system ;  and  it  is  inevitable  that  in  many  sections  great 
numbers  of  children  are  still  herded  together  under  one 
teacher.  Especially  in  the  Prussian  East,  where  the 
school  has  had  an  important  task  in  the  nationalization 
of  the  Polish  elements,  there  is  a  great  lack  of  teachers 
and  a  consequent  overcrowding  of  the  schools.  In  the 
period  1891-1912  the  number  of  children  in  the  elemen- 
tary schools  of  the  empire  had  increased  from  approxi- 
mately eight  to  ten  millions,  the  number  of  teachers 
from  120,000  to  180,000,  the  average  per  teacher  falling 
from  66  to  55,  while  the  average  expenditure  per  scholar 
had  doubled,  from  30  to  60  marks.  It  is  unavoidable 
that  a  large  number  of  children  have  to  be  kept  on  half 
time ;  and  according  to  figures  submitted  at  the  conven- 
tion of  the  Deutscher  Lehreroerein  in  191 2  one  and  one- 
quarter  million  of  the  children  were  still  crowded  into 
classes  of  from  60  to  150.  Saxony,  whose  industrial 
development  has  rivalled  that  of  the  Prussian  West,  had 
in  1906  more  than  6  per  cent  of  its  primary  pupils  in 
classes  of  over  80.  Conditions  have,  however,  improved 
in  this  regard,  for,  as  has  just  been  shown,  while  from  1891 
to  191 2  the  enrolment  of  the  Volksschule  increased  25 
per  cent,  the  number  of  teachers  increased  30.5  per  cent, 
and  the  average  disbursement  per  scholar  doubled. 

The  Lehrerverein  found,  indeed,  the  increase  of  teachers 
quite  inadequate  to  keep  up  with  the  demands  of  modem 
life;  and  pointed  out  that  in  the  same  period  the  em- 
ployees of  postal  and  telegraph  services  had  increased 
87  per  cent.  The  comparison  is  another  testimonial  to 
the  wide-awakeness  and  solidarity  of  the  German 
teachers,  who  are  constantly  dinning  into  the  ears  of 
the  ministr)^  what  they  regard  as  the  inadequacy  of  the 
school  system :  that  of  ten  millions  of  children  four 
millions  are  crowded  into  large  classes  and  receive 
scarcely  more  than  the  beginnings  of  instruction,  that 


326    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

the  school  buildings  are  much  inferior  to  those  in  Eng- 
land and  America  and  that  the  teachers  are  underpaid 
and  overworked.  To  these  laments,  which  are  heard 
from  teachers  the  world  over,  they  add  certain  ones 
pecuhar  to  the  German  system :  the  struggle  with  the 
confessional  question  and  the  caste  spirit,  which  closes 
to  the  teacher  in  the  elementary  school  the  avenues  of 
promotion  to  higher  places  in  the  hierarchy  of  educa- 
tion by  demanding  for  these  places  the  university  train- 
ing from  which  in  Prussia  and  some  other  states  he  is 
excluded. 

Beside,  and  as  a  continuation  of,  the  Volksschule  exist, 
especially  in  the  larger  towns,  Burger schulen  or  "middle 
schools,"  which  by  the  addition  of  a  modern  language 
and  other  studies  prolong  the  child's  training  for  one 
or  more  years  beyond  the  eight  years  required  for  the 
primary  school.  They  are  a  sort  of  link  between  ele- 
mentary and  secondary  education,  opening  the  way 
into  certain  trade  and  technical  schools;  but  gradua- 
tion from  them  does  not  admit  to  the  privileg(is  of  one 
year  military  service,  a  right  which  entitles  the  posses- 
sor to  regard  himself  as  of  the  upper  caste,  and  which 
automatically  falls  to  the  graduates  of  the  so-called 
"  higher  schools." 

These  higher  schools,  which  make  up  what  may  be 
called  secondary  education  in  Germany,  form  a  some- 
what intricate  system,  and  dovetail  at  last  into  a  higher 
trade  or  technical  institution  or  into  the  u:aiversities. 
The  striking  and  undemocratic  feature  of  the  system, 
which  has  already  been  noted,  is  that  the  Volksschule 
does  not  form  the  basis  for  all  education,  but  that  second- 
ary education  is  built  up  separately  and  independently 
of  it.  The  German  system  does  not  regard  it  as  desir- 
able that  the  children  of  the  classes,  the  future  political 
and  intellectual  rulers  of  the  nation,  should  mingle  in 
tender  years  in  schoolroom  and  on  the  playground 
with  the  children  of  the  masses,  and  there  are  not  many 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS  IN  EDUCATION    327 

voices  heard  against  the  caste  segregation  which  is  so 
old  and  integral  a  part  of  the  Fatherland's  institutions. 
Increased  criticism  is  heard,  however,  among  the  popu- 
lar parties  of  the  specialization  which  excludes  graduates 
of  the  primary  school,  except  in  very  rare  instances,  from 
the  possibility  of  later  transference  to  higher  institutions 
and  from  participation  in  the  professions  and  the  so- 
called  ' '  higher  callings. ' '  Nothing  less  than  the  secondary 
school  with  a  six-year  course,  —  the  Progymnasia  and  Real- 
schulen,  or  private  institutions  approved  by  the  govern- 
ment and  much  more  expensive  than  the  public  schools 
—  will  obtain  the  coveted  "one  year  volunteer"  privilege 
and  admission  to  the  higher  schools  of  agriculture  and  art 
as  well  as  to  the  second  class  of  technical  schools  and  pre- 
ferred positions  in  the  government  service.  The  schools 
with  a  nine-year  course  —  Gymnasia,  Realgymnasia  and 
Oherrealschule  —  are  the  only  road  to  the  university  de- 
grees and  professions.  All  of  these  schools  take  the  boy 
at  nine  years  of  age,  after  he  has  received  three  years 
of  elementary  schooling,  which  may  be  had  in  the  Volks- 
schule,  in  preparatory  institutions  attached  to  the  second- 
ary school  or  in  the  hcensed  elementary  schools,  which 
serve  their  purpose  in  preparing  for  the  higher  institu- 
tions. Several  of  the  German  states,  including  Bavaria, 
Saxony  and  Baden,  do  not  license  private  elementary 
schools,  and  the  existence  of  these  private  Vorschulen 
is  condemned  by  German  pedagogues  because  it  breaks 
the  s>"mmetry  of  the  whole  educational  plan.  As  has 
been  remarked,  the  number  of  voices  is  increasing  year 
by  year  which  call  for  a  reorganization  that  shall  in 
some  way  build  secondary  education  upon  a  broader 
basis,  opening  the  higher  schools  to  every  child,  accord- 
ing to  his  ability,  without  regard  to  the  social  and  finan- 
cial standing  of  his  parents. 

For  the  present,  then,  secondary  education  is  not  to 
be  regarded  as  a  link  between  the  Volksschule  and  the 
institutions  of  university  grade.     Only  in  extraordinary 


328    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

instances  can  the  graduate  of  the  popular  school  or  its 
extension,  the  "middle  school"  (Burgerschule) ,  find 
his  way  into  any  higher  institution  of  learning ;  he  does 
not  enjoy  the  privilege  of  one- year  military  service.  It  is 
about  this  privilege  that  the  whole  system  of  secondary 
education  revolves ;  and  it  maintains  in  the  higher  schools 
of  Germany  a  spirit  of  caste,  which  Hke  every  other  mani- 
festation of  the  same  kind  is  directly  opposed  to  the 
spirit  of  liberal  culture.  It  is  this  privilege,  joined  to 
the  pressing  demand  of  modern  life  for  early  specializa- 
tion, that  maintains  and  fills  the  group  of  six-year  schools, 
—  the  Fro  gymnasium,  Prorealgymnasium  and  Real- 
schule,  —  whose  graduates,  having  enjoyed  to  their 
sixteenth  year  or  thereabouts  a  strenuous  training  based 
on  classical  and  modern  culture,  pass  out  into  business 
or  into  industrial  and  technical  institutions  which  pre- 
pare them  for  the  middle  walks  of  technical  or  ojB&cial 
life.  The  number  of  such  schools  increased  rapidly  as 
Germany's  industrial  and  commercial  life  grew  and 
new  lines  of  industry  opened,  demanding  an  earlier 
apprenticeship.  The  six-year  schools  are  an  earnest 
effort  to  meet  these  demands  and  at  the  same  time  fur- 
nish the  business  and  industrial  leaders  of  Germany 
with  a  sound  basis  of  hberal  culture :  unfortunately  the 
feeling  of  caste  attached  to  the  "one-year  privilege" 
attracts  into  them  a  great  many  whose  parents  can  ill 
afford  the  sacrifice,  and  many  others  who  could  best 
serve  their  generation  in  the  lower  walks  of  life. 

The  number  of  such  intellectually  bad  investments 
is  naturally  much  smaller  in  the  group  of  nine-year 
institutions,  which  prepare  for  the  universities  and  for 
all  of  the  higher  technical  and  official  places.  At  their 
head  marches  the  time-honored  Gymnasium,  where 
Greek  and  Latin  still  maintain  their  age-old  position  as 
the  backbone  of  a  hberal  culture.  After  it  comes  in 
point  of  prestige  the  Realgymnasium,  which  has  banished 
Greek  and  installed  the  modern  languages  in  its  place; 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS  IN  EDUCATION     329 

and  last  of  all  the  Oberrealschule,  where  instruction  rests 
on  modern  languages,  mathematics  and  the  natural 
sciences.  Not  over  one  per  cent  of  the  school  enrolment 
of  Germany  is  in  attendance  on  this  group  of  nine-year 
schools  in  any  one  year;  and  the  demands  which  the 
schools  make  is  best  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  a  con- 
siderable percentage  of  those  who  enter  drop  out  without 
completing  the  course,  for  the  most  part  after  passing 
the  one-year  mihtary  service  examination.  Neverthe- 
less the  number  of  these  schools  has  constantly  increased, 
to  the  alarm  of  a  considerable  body  of  reactionary  poli- 
ticians and,  it  must  be  said  also,  not  a  few  progressive 
schoolmen.  The  former  see  in  the  growing  number  of 
men  preparing  for  the  universities,  among  them  a  large 
number  very  poorly  equipped  with  financial  means  to 
launch  themselves  in  the  professions,  an  increase  in  the 
"intellectual  proletariat,"  which  since  Bismarck's  day 
has  been  charged  with  furnishing  Social  Democratic 
leaders  and  unruly  spirits  of  all  sorts.  The  latter  feel 
that  the  learned  professions  are  already  overcrowded  and 
that  a  large  number  of  the  graduates  of  the  higher  schools 
must  of  necessity  enter  pursuits  and  professions  for 
which  the  secondary  schools,  from  the  Gymnasium, 
most  determined  in  its  defense  of  the  classics,  to  the 
Oberrealschule,  most  liberal  towards  modern  culture, 
give  httle  preparation  but  rather  an  ww-preparation  by 
their  attitude  toward  the  productive  pursuits. 

In  their  own  field,  that  of  a  hberal  education  as  a  basis 
for  professional  study,  these  schools  are  unique  in  the 
spirit  which  fills  them  and  their  teaching  corps.  To 
praise  their  accompHshments  would  be  to  paint  the  lily 
and  adorn  the  rose.  Their  teachers  are  practically  all 
university-trained  men,  who  with  five  years  of  study 
have  passed  the  state's  examination,  usually  after  win- 
ning the  title  of  "doctor  of  philosophy."  They  have 
then  spent  one  year  in  pedagogical  study  under  seminary 
instruction  with  the  school  as  a  laboratory,  followed  by  a 


330    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

trial  year  of  teaching  under  the  supervision  of  a  vigorous 
school  principal,  before  they  are  fully  certificated.  Add- 
ing to  this  a  year  of  military  service  and  a  period  of  wait- 
ing averaging  of  late  five  years,  during  which  the  teacher 
does  substitute  work  in  preparation  for  a  permanent 
appointment  to  a  vacancy,  and  we  see  that  the  secondary 
school  teacher  passes  through  something  like  thirteen 
years  of  professional  study  and  experimental  teaching 
before  the  state  finally  appoints  him  to  full  charge  of 
class  work.  Once  appointed,  however,  he  has  a  living 
salary,  a  fair  pension  allowance  and  a  position  that  is 
secure  if  he  does  his  duty  and  often  secure  when  years  of 
tenure  have  brought  a  slouchy  performance  of  duty. 
Besides  this,  his  social  position,  while  yet  considerably 
below  that  of  the  university  professor,  is  nevertheless 
increasingly  honorable.  Under  the  circumstances  it  is 
no  wonder  that  the  secondary  school-teachers  are  filled 
with  a  strong  professional  pride  and  a  spirit  of  scientific 
investigation,  which,  to  be  sure,  sometimes  results  in 
neglect  of  school  duty  for  the  sake  of  producing  some 
well-nigh  useless  fragment  of  investigative  scholarship, 
but  which  fires  the  work  of  the  energetic  and  progressive 
teacher  with  the  creative  spirit  that  passes  like  a  burning 
torch  to  his  pupils  and  prepares  them  for  the  severe 
charms  of  university  scholarship. 

It  is  apparent  from  the  foregoing  that  the  strength  of 
Germany's  educational  system  lies  in  specialization,  its 
greatest  weakness  in  the  hard  and  fast  way  in  which 
the  pupil  in  the  popular  Volksschule  is  shut  out  from  a 
share  in  the  benefits  of  a  liberal  education.  The  ele- 
mentary school  contains  just  what  is  necessary  for  the 
training  of  pious  and  patriotic  townsmen  and  peasants ; 
whatsoever  is  more  than  that  belongs  to  the  nation's 
social  and  intellectual  elite,  whose  course  diverges  from 
that  of  the  children  of  the  Volk  at  about  the  tender  age 
of  nine.  A  similar  specialization  goes  on  within  the 
secondary  school  system,  for  at  the  same  age,  i.e.  on 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS  IN  EDUCATION    331 

entry  into  the  secondary  school,  the  father  of  the  pupil 
must  decide  whether  his  young  hopeful  is  to  enter  a  pro- 
fession for  which  the  humanistic  preparation  of^  the 
Gymnasium  is  required  or  whether  the  humanistic- 
modern  training  of  the  Realgymnasium  or  the  modern 
training  of  the  Realschule  best  suits  the  youngster's 
future  career.  The  task  is  by  no  means  so  difficult  as 
it  was  before  the  royal  decree  of  1900  broke  the  gym- 
nasial  monopoly.  Up  to  that  time  only  the  Gymnasium 
could  prepare  the  student  for  the  study  of  law,  medicine 
and  theology  at  the  university;  since  then  Prussia, 
followed  by  the  other  states,  has  opened  all  the  pro- 
fessions to  students  of  the  "  ReaV  institutions,  except 
the  profession  of  theology,  where  the  training  in  Greek 
is  still  regarded  as  an  absolute  condition. 

Even  before  the  School  Conference  of  1890  and  the 
royal  decree  of  1900  efforts  had  been  made  to  miti- 
gate the  evil  of  this  extreme  specialization.  As  early 
as  1894  experiments  had  been  made  at  Altona  and 
Frankfort  on  the  Main  in  the  direction  of  postponing 
the  decision  as  to  the  pupil's  choice  of  preparation  and 
a  life  calling,  and  a  system  had  been  evolved  that  was 
variously  baptized  according  to  its  several  varieties,  the 
most  popular  of  which  bears  the  name  of  the  "Frank- 
fort plan,"  because  first  developed  in  the  famous  Goethe 
Gymnasium  in  Frankfort.  This  system  pro\ddes  for  an 
arrangement  of  studies  which  permits  the  pupils  of  all 
three  institutions  —  Gymnasium,  Realgymnasium  and 
Oberrealschule  —  to  pursue  their  studies  together  for 
three  years  and  then  makes  it  possible  for  those  who 
study  Latin  to  go  on  two  years  longer  together  before  a 
decision  has  finally  to  be  made  between  the  strictly 
humanistic  and  the  humanistic-modern  ideal  of  culture. 

The  need  of  such  a  plan,  by  which  the  heavy  responsi- 
bility of  the  parent  is  delayed  until  some  idea  can  be 
had  of  the  child's  aptitudes,  has  received  abundant  proof 
through  the  popularity  of  the  "reform"  schools,  which 


332    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

are  further  recommended  for  the  sound  pedagogical 
reason  that  they  permit  further  concentration  on  fewer 
subjects  and  consequently  less  splitting  up  of  the  pupil's 
time  than  is  allowable  in  the  older  system.  By  1910 
fully  20  per  cent  of  the  German  secondary  schools  were 
conducted  according  to  the  "Frankfort"  or  the  "Altona 
plan"  or  some  minor  variation  of  them ;  and  despite  the 
opposition  of  the  Gymnasia,  which  see  their  peculiar 
institution  threatened  by  this  commingling,  the  "reform" 
movement  has  apparently  won  the  day  and  marked  the 
route  upon  which  future  reforms  in  secondary  education 
must  travel.  No  less  interesting  was  the  very  popular 
experiment  made  in  Berlin  with  the  curricula  of  the 
Realschulen,  which  by  delaying  the  commencement  of  a 
modern  language  until  the  third  year  makes  it  possible 
for  the  student  to  attend  the  Volksschule  for  five  years 
before  he  enters  on  the  higher  school.  By  19 13  the  num- 
ber of  these  schools  had  increased  to  13.  The  success  and 
popularity  of  this  arrangement  is  encouraging  because 
it  marks  a  trend  toward  greater  democracy  in  the  schools.^ 
Enough  has  been  said  to  show  that  the  battle  of  the 
centuries  between  ancient  and  modern  culture  is  still 
waging  in  Germany.  However,  the  breaking  of  the 
gymnasial  monopoly  in  1900  and  the  rapid  multiplica- 
tion of  the  modern  municipal  Realschulen  under  the 
drive  of  modern  business  has  put  the  venerable  human- 
istic institutions  more  and  more  into  a  defensive  attitude. 
A  similar  movement  has  been  noticeable  in  the  growth 
of  the  technical  universities,  which  have  gradually  won 
their  way  to  equality  with  the  time-honored  academies 

^  A  further  evidence  of  the  drift  towards  democracy  is  the  increased 
interest  in  the  "  union  school,"  which  formed  one  of  the  subjects  of  dis- 
cussion at  the  Deutscher  Lehrertag  at  Kiel  in  1914.  This  Einheitsschule, 
which  should  unite  the  children  of  all  classes  until  the  age  of  12,  was  a 
dream  of  the  liberals  of  1848.  It  has  been  successfully  experimented  with 
in  Hamburg  and  other  places,  but  finds  no  favor  with  the  Prussian  au- 
thorities. In  Prussia,  however,  many  of  the  cities  have  scholarships, 
which  permit  the  transfer  of  bright  pupils  from  the  Volksschule  at  an 
early  age  to  "  free  places  "  in  the  secondary  schools. 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS  IN  EDUCATION     333 

of  higher  learning  that  have  been  Germany's  glory  for 
centuries.  There  are  now  eleven  of  these  technical 
institutions  of  university  rank  in  Germany,  most  of 
them  founded  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century 
as  vocational  schools  and  advanced  through  the  addi- 
tion of  various  departments  after  the  middle  of  the 
century  to  the  rank  of  polytechnic  academies.  Half  a 
century  ago  the  universities  might  have  absorbed  these 
institutions  as  technical  departments,  but  academic 
conservatism  stood  in  the  way.  Since  that  time  they 
have  seen  their  younger  technical  sisters  gradually  fight 
their  way  to  university  rank  in  spite  of  the  opposition 
and  contempt  of  the  older  humanistic  institutions,  until 
finally  in  1899  the  Emperor  conferred  the  right  of  grant- 
ing the  degree  of  "doctor  of  technical  science"  upon  the 
Technical  University  at  Charlottenburg  and  thereby 
set  the  stamp  of  equahty  with  the  university. 

These  polytechnic  institutions  march  at  the  head  of 
the  whole  system  of  technical  and  industrial  education 
in  Germany.  Their  students  must  have  pursued  a 
nine-year  course  in  the  secondary  schools;  their  grad- 
uates become  inventors,  engineers,  superintendents  and 
heads  of  larger  industrial  enterprises.  They  are  expected 
not  only  to  lead  along  the  old  ways  of  technical  science, 
but  also  to  mark  out  new  ones,  for  the  creative  spirit 
which  has  been  the  glory  of  German  advanced  scholar- 
ship everywhere  marks  them  also.  Next  below  them  in 
the  training  of  the  army  of  technical  students  are  institu- 
tions, Hke  the  Royal  Industrial  Academy  (Gewerbe  Aka- 
demie)  at  Chemnitz  in  Saxony,  with  departments  of 
mechanics,  chemistry  and  architecture,  which  require 
for  admission  a  six-years  course  in  the  secondary  school. 
These  bridge  over  the  gap  between  the  technical  uni- 
versities and  the  great  group  of  intermediate  industrial 
schools.  The  latter  are  practically  all  vocational  in 
character.  Their  students  have  had  a  course  in  the 
Volksschule  followed  by  a  course  in  an  elementary  indus- 


334    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

trial  school  or  a  continuation  school;  their  graduates 
become  the  officers  of  larger  factories  and  the  superin- 
tendents of  smaller  shops  and  are  known  as  "  technicians." 
Upon  these  intermediate  schools  follow  the  lower  voca- 
tional schools,  whose  students  have  completed  the  Volks- 
schule,  with  additional  work  in  mathematics  and  drawing. 
They  have  also  usually  entered  upon  an  apprenticeship 
in  the  branch  which  the  school  teaches.  The  training 
in  these  elementary  vocational  schools  sticks  close  to  the 
practical  side  of  the  trade,  and  lasts  sometimes  for 
months,  more  usually,  with  interruptions,  for  years. 
From  some  of  them  come  the  foremen  in  large  factories 
or  the  managers  of  small  undertakings.  Others  succeed 
only  in  preparing  well-trained  machinists,  engineers  or 
electricians. 

To  these  schools,  all  of  which  are  day  institutions 
requiring  almost  the  whole  time  of  the  student,  is  to  be 
added  a  fourth  group  —  the  continuation  schools.  The 
continuation  school  system,  largely  a  creation  of  the 
industrial  and  commercial  demands  of  Germany  since 
the  eighties,  is  regarded  with  justice  as  a  triumph  of 
German  pedagogy.  It  has,  however,  grown  so  fast, 
keeping  pace  with  the  empire's  rapid  industrial  advance, 
that  legislation  has  not  been  able  to  keep  up  with  it. 
In  many  of  the  states  no  attempt  has  yet  been  made 
to  bring  the  continuation  schools  under  state  control. 
The  Prussian  government  brought  in  a  bill  in  the  Land- 
tag in  1 91 3  for  state  regulation,  but  it  soon  got  into  diffi- 
culties through  the  injection  of  confessional  and  political 
or  semi-political  questions.  In  the  largest  state,  which 
is  accustomed  to  lead  in  matters  of  education  as  in  other 
things,  the  continuation  school  has  as  yet  been  left  en- 
tirely to  the  individual  communities,  the  state  con- 
tributing to  the  schools  only  when  education  is  made 
compulsory.  In  most  Prussian  communities  attendance 
is  compulsory  for  three  years  after  the  completion  of 
the  Volksschule.     In  Saxony  boys   must   attend    three 


CONSERVATISM  AND  PROGRESS  IN  EDUCATION    335 

years,  girls  two ;  in  Bavaria  both  sexes  must  attend 
three  years.  These  schools  are  a  remarkable  testi- 
monial to  the  industry  and  ambition  of  German  youth, 
who  give  up  their  Sunday  mornings  and  week-day 
evenings  to  study,  for  as  a  rule  instruction  extends  from 
eight  to  ten  hours  per  week.  A  number  of  the  con- 
tinuation schools  have  a  general  character  and  include 
German,  drawing,  some  mathematics  and  a  little  law 
and  history ;  but  the  better  ones  are  vocational  schools, 
preparing  directly  for  some  trade  or  business,  and  as  is 
to  be  expected,  the  better  and  more  enthusiastic  class 
of  students  attend  these.  The  continuation  scheme  in- 
cludes in  the  larger  cities  an  intricate  system  of  schools 
for  the  widest  variety  of  vocations,  from  machine-build- 
ing, textile  work  and  horology  to  blacksmithing  and 
barbering.  It  draws  into  its  widespread  net  boys  and 
girls  of  fourteen  to  eighteen  and  older  from  almost 
every  hamlet  in  the  Fatherland.  It  is  the  graduate  and 
professional  continuation  of  the  Volksschule  and  takes 
care  that  the  young  German  worker  does  not  waste  his 
evenings  and  Sunday  mornings,  but  invests  them  as 
interest-bearing  capital  for  the  nation's  commerce  and 
industry. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

State  and  Chxjrch  in  the  Schools 

Even  so  rapid  a  survey  of  Germany's  educational 
system  as  that  in  the  preceding  chapter  must  give  an 
idea  of  the  vastness  and  intricacy  of  it.  Next  to  the 
military  system,  which  it  resembles  and  with  which  it 
interlocks  in  so  striking  a  fashion,  it  lies  closer  to  the 
heart  of  the  German  lawgiver  than  any  other  institution 
of  the  state.  "Whoever  controls  the  schools,  controls 
the  future,"  is  an  adage  which  the  Germans  have  at  all 
times  taken  very  much  to  heart,  and  never  so  much  as  in 
recent  years,  when  the  rise  of  Socialism  and  atheism  have 
threatened  the  existence  of  society  as  now  constituted. 
In  both  the  school  conferences  called  by  William  II, 
in  1890  and  1900,  which  were  attended  by  such  important 
results,  especially  for  secondary  education,  the  national 
task  of  the  school  was  strongly  emphasized ;  and  the 
bearing  of  the  educational  system  on  the  future  of  both 
church  and  state  has  been  the  subject  of  frequent  dis- 
cussion in  all  the  state  parliaments. 

''The  community  supports  education,  the  state  controls 
it,"  is  a  maxim  to  which  the  German  governments  cling 
tenaciously.  In  practically  all  of  the  states  a  sharp 
control  is  exercised  by  the  government  authorities  over 
the  establishment  of  new  schools,  the  erection  of  school 
buildings  and  the  appointment  and  pay  of  teachers, 
while  the  expense  of  elementary  education  in  greater 
part  and  of  secondary  education  in  part,  is  borne  by 
the  individual  communities.  In  Prussia  school  affairs 
are  administered  jointly  with  medical  and  religious 
matters  by  one   ministry.     This    department,  through 

33(> 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN  THE   SCHOOLS       337 

the  provincial  school  boards,  under  the  chairmanship 
of  the  provincial  president  or  his  representative,  brings 
all  of  the  schools  in  direct  dependency  on  the  crown. 
The  provincial  school  boards  are  composed  of  trained 
schoolmen,  selected  for  their  efficiency  and  naturally 
also  for  their  tried  loyalty  to  the  government ;  and  the 
oversight  of  all  elementary  and  secondary  education  in 
the  province  falls  under  their  control.  On  their  recom- 
mendation the  department  of  education  fixes  the  course 
of  study,  determines  the  salary  and  pensions  of  the 
teachers,  controls  the  examinations  for  teachers  and 
pupils,  and  in  many  cases  appoints  the  teachers  or 
confirms  their  appointment  by  the  local  school  boards. 
Under  these  provincial  boards  the  elementary  schools 
are  regularly  inspected  by  district  inspectors,  of  whom 
about  30  per  cent  (1910)  give  all  of  their  time  to  school 
aft^airs.  The  other  70  per  cent  are  chosen  mainly  from 
the  clergy,  who  also  play  a  considerable  role  as  district 
inspectors  in  the  states  outside  of  Prussia.  The  Volks- 
schulen  are  further  subject  to  a  local  inspection,  which 
in  Prussia  and  most  of  the  other  states  is  largely  in  the 
hands  of  the  local  clergy,  a  state  of  affairs  that  will  come 
up  for  further  discussion  below.  In  Prussia  particularly 
the  teachers  in  the  primary  schools  look  forward  eagerly 
to  the  time  when  the  schools  shall  be  freed  from  local 
inspectors  and  when  district  supervision  shall  not  be  in 
the  hands  so  largely  of  jurists  and  clergy,  but,  as  is  al- 
ready the  case  in  certain  of  the  smaller  German  states, 
of  trained  professional  schoolmen.  Every  move  in  this 
direction,  however,  is  bitterly  opposed  by  the  Centre 
and  Conservative  parties,  who  look  upon  the  church  as 
the  mother  of  the  schools  and  regard  any  spread  of  the 
system  of  professional  district  inspection  as  a  blow  at 
clerical  influence.  In  the  smaller  states,  where  reli- 
gious differences  do  not  play  so  large  a  part  as  in 
Prussia  and  Bavaria,  state  control  of  the  schools  is 
more  direct  and  thorough. 


338     THE   GERMAN   EMPIRE   BETWEEN  TWO   WARS 

The  state,  therefore,  through  a  strongly  centralized 
administration  controls  the  schools  in  their  organization 
and  activity.  The  community  pays  the  bills  for  some- 
what under  70  per  cent  of  the  German  elementary  school 
system,  and  through  the  local  school  board  exercises  a 
legislative  and  advisory  voice  in  all  that  concerns  the  outer 
welfare  of  the  schools.  The  board  is  variously  organ- 
ized in  the  various  states;  but  its  make-up  is  essen- 
tially the  same  everywhere.  Whether  in  city  or  country, 
it  includes  the  representatives  of  the  local  administration, 
certain  teachers  or  school  principals,  the  local  clergy  of  the 
three  recognized  faiths  (evangelical,  Roman  Catholic  and 
Jewish)  and  representative  citizens  from  the  local  legis- 
lative body.  This  school  committee  provides  the  money 
for  the  support  of  the  schools  and  in  some  cases  selects 
teachers  from  ehgible  lists  prepared  by  the  department 
of  education.  In  everything,  including  the  pay  and 
pension  of  teachers  and  the  plans  for  new  buildings,  it 
must  conform  to  the  provisions  of  the  state  authorities. 
With  the  inner  administration  of  the  schools  it  hc,s  nothing 
to  do,  its  members  in  most  places  not  even  having  the 
right  to  attend  classes  or  inspect  in  any  way  the  work  of 
the  schools.  In  Prussia  the  state  provides  a  large  part 
of  the  pensions  and  backs  up  the  weaker  communities 
financially  in  the  maintenance  of  the  schools  and  the 
building  of  new  ones,  especially  in  those  districts  of  the 
eastern  marches  where  the  work  of  the  schools  in  the 
Germanization  of  the  Poles  is  of  such  importance.  In 
fact,  state  aid  is  an  important  item  and  one  on  which 
the  Volksschulen  in  the  poorer  communities  throughout 
all  Germany  count.  In  1906  the  share  of  the  states' 
contributions,  not  including  the  education  of  teachers 
and  inspection,  summed  up  29  per  cent  of  the  total 
cost  of  the  elementary  schools  for  the  empire. 

Of  secondary  schools  a  considerable  part  are  through- 
out Germany  state  affairs.  These  state  Gymnasia  are 
usually  old  foundations,  for  in  recent  years  the  govern- 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN  THE   SCHOOLS       339 

ment  authorities  in  the  larger  German  states  have 
closely  restricted  the  opening  of  new  state  secondary 
schools.  With  Bismarck's  warning  against  an  "edu- 
cated proletariat"  ringing  in  their  ears,  conservative 
lawmakers  and  government  officials  have  been  very 
unwilUng  to  increase  the  schools  that  prepare  for  learned 
careers.  "The  attendance  on  the  university  far  exceeds 
the  demand,"  declared  a  leader  of  the  Conservative 
"Imperial  Party"  in  the  Prussian  Landtag  in  191 2. 
"  By  this  means  there  has  arisen  an  educated  proletariat 
which  is  a  danger  to  the  state.  It  is  from  among  such 
men,  whose  careers  are  wrecked,  that  the  Social  Demo- 
crats draw  their  best  strength.  Every  increase  in 
university  attendance  must  increase  this  danger."  It 
is  indeed  not  solely  for  political  reasons  that  objection 
is  made  to  the  multiplication  of  candidates  for  the 
learned  professions,  Germany  certainly  needs  business 
men  and  farmers,  technicians  and  handworkers,  and 
not  more  lawyers,  physicians  and  philologians,  whom 
the  ambition  for  the  social  prestige  that  comes  with  a 
learned  title  and  calling  rather  than  any  sympathy 
with  their  Hfe's  work  is  driving  into  overcrowded  pro- 
fessions. However,  the  refusal  of  the  state  govern- 
ments to  found  new  schools  has  spurred  the  pride  of 
the  rapidly  growing  cities  to  open  on  their  own  account 
a  number  of  secondary  schools,  which  often  outstrip 
the  older  and  more  dignified  state  institutions  in  their 
equipment  and  salary  list.  Thus  while  in  Bavaria 
all  of  the  secondary  schools  are  state  institutions,  in 
Prussia  a  great  number  of  them  are  civic  and  in  Saxony 
almost  all  are  municipal  foundations.  The  older  state 
institutions,  some  of  which  trace  their  history  from  the 
sixteenth  century,  claim  a  certain  prestige  of  age  and 
tradition  that  even  the  splendid  equipment  of  the  new 
city  schools  has  not  yet  greatly  diminished.  Of  the 
Gymnasia  in  Prussia,  two-fifths  are  now  city  affairs, 
while  practically  all  the  Realgymnasia  and  Realschulen 


340    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

are  municipal  foundations.  The  six-year  Realschule, 
indeed,  with  its  emphasis  of  modem  culture  and  a  more 
practical  education,  is  the  most  distinguished  contribu- 
tion of  the  city  spirit  to  intellectual  Germany.  The 
city  must  of  course  obtain  governmental  approval 
before  a  new  school  is  founded,  and  while  this  is  given 
readily  enough  where  a  real  need  exists,  it  is  subject 
to  the  fulfilment  of  every  state  requirement  as  to  build- 
ings and  equipment.  In  these  respects,  indeed,  the 
municipality  usually  goes  much  farther  than  the  re- 
quirements, for  nowhere  have  the  growing  wealth  of 
the  cities  and  their  strong  civic  pride  shown  themselves 
more  splendidly  than  in  their  magnificent  school  build- 
ings and  the  generous  provision  in  equipment  and  in  pay 
to  the  teachers.  In  this  regard  they  have  set  far  too  fast 
a  pace  for  the  older  state  institutions. 

These  evidences  of  the  modem  spirit  in  the  schools 
are  a  noteworthy  sign  of  the  growth  of  democracy  in 
the  German  cities.  It  is  the  lack  of  democracy  in  the 
state's  attitude  toward  the  schools  that  forms  the  chief 
burden  of  complaint  among  German  teachers.  State 
control  is  in  most  ways  very  beneficial.  It  normalizes 
the  schools  and  organizes  them  under  a  central  control, 
which  puts  highly  trained  men  in  charge  and  insures 
the  appointment  of  the  best  teachers  available.  It 
provides  a  system  of  supervision  which,  so  far  as  it  is 
done  by  professionally  trained  inspectors,  guarantees 
the  proper  performance  of  duty,  without  fear  of  local 
influences,  by  every  functionary  from  the  principal 
do\vn  to  the  last  substitute.  As  a  result,  the  whole 
system,  from  the  East  Prussian  one-class  Volksschule 
up  to  the  venerable  monastery-like  Schul-Pforta  near 
Naumburg,  is  characterized  by  German  method,  thor- 
oughness and  conscientious  performance  of  duty.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  due  to  state  supervision  that  the 
same  barriers  against  democracy  are  maintained  in  the 
schools  as  in  the  poHtical  fife  of  Prussia  and  other  Ger- 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN  THE   SCHOOLS      341 

man  states.  It  is  due  to  reactionary  forces  working 
in  parliament  and  ministry  that  distinctions  of  class 
still  prevent  the  logical  articulation  of  primary  educa- 
tion into  secondary  education.  As  we  have  seen,  the 
schools  are  not  organically  built  up.  The  Volksschule 
is  for  the  masses  which  are  cut  off  from  the  social  and 
intellectual  ehte  of  the  nation  in  even  the  earliest  years 
of  school  life.  This  essentially  undemocratic  character 
of  the  schools  is  bitterly  assailed  by  the  teachers  of  the 
Volksschule,  but  there  are  at  present  few  signs  of  a 
change. 

It  is  natural  also  that  progressive  teachers,  whether 
of  elementary  or  secondary  schools,  should  demand  a 
larger  share  of  at  least  an  advisory  sort  in  the  conduct 
of  the  schools.  In  191 1  Baden,  one  of  the  most  pro- 
gressive of  the  German  states  in  the  direction  of  popular 
government,  founded  a  school  council  (Landesschulrai) , 
composed  of  members  of  the  ministry  and  professional 
schoolmen,  whose  business  it  is  to  oversee  the  schools 
and  advise  the  ministry  as  to  their  administration. 
Something  like  this  is  especially  desired  in  the  larger 
states,  where  the  ideal  of  many  teachers  is  the  creation  of 
school  "synods,"  elective  Hke  the  church  synods  from 
citizens  and  school  experts,  so  that  the  school  interests 
of  each  district  and  province  and  of  the  state  itself  may 
be  cared  for  by  an  elective  body,  consisting  in  part  of 
"laymen"  and  in  part  of  trained  teachers.  Such 
bodies,  the  champions  of  this  system  contend,  would 
without  interfering  in  any  way  with  the  admirable  sides 
of  the  state's  inspection  and  control,  administer  the 
affairs  of  the  schools  in  a  much  more  homogeneous  and 
democratic  manner  than  is  possible  under  the  present 
highly  diversified  system.  However,  such  a  unified 
scheme  finds  strenuous  opposition  among  those  who 
believe  that  the  very  variety  of  the  Prussian  school 
organization  is  necessary  and  secures  better  results  in 
view  of  the  wide  differences  in  population  and  spirit 


342     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

between  the  feudal  East,   the  patriarchal  North  and 
the  industrial  West  of  the  kingdom. 

In  this  effort  of  the  teachers  to  increase  their  influence 
on  the  school  administration  there  is  another  e-'/idence 
of  the  rise  of  professional  pride  among  a  class  which 
has,  after  many  struggles,  at  last  won  for  itself  a  recog- 
nized place  in  the  state  bureaucracy,  second  only  to 
that  of  the  army  and  those  higher  officials  who  owe 
their  position  to  early  financial  and  social  advantages. 
With  this  growth  of  professional  pride  there  has  spread 
among  the  schools  in  the  development  of  the  new  em- 
pire a  spirit  of  miHtarism  which,  especially  after  the 
beginning  of  the  new  century,  quite  took  possession  of 
the  secondary  schools.  This  spirit  has  shown  itself 
throughout  the  empire,  but  finds,  Hke  other  things 
military,  its  most  striking  form  in  Prussia.  The  Prus- 
sian schoolmaster  is  like  the  Prussian  in  general  by 
nature  and  training  a  soldier,  and  the  Prussian  school- 
boy falls  in  unresistingly  with  the  spirit  of  rigid  'iiscipHne 
and  unwavering  obedience  that  has  been  so  characteristic 
of  his  native  land  since  the  days  of  Frederick  William  I 
and  has  become  so  characteristic  of  Germany  under 
Prussian  hegemony.  The  procession  of  children  who 
follow  their  teacher  on  an  afternoon  excursion  through 
the  suburbs  of  Berlin  or  Hanover  is  a  vivid  illustration 
of  the  military  spirit.  Two  and  two  they  march,  with 
unbroken  step,  halting  at  a  crowded  corner  in  obedience 
to  a  wave  of  the  teacher's  hand  or  deploying  into  the 
fields  at  their  marshal's  signal,  —  no  dodging  under 
trolley  cars  or  staring  into  store  windows  or  other  acts 
of  insubordination  so  inseparable  from  schoolboydom 
elsewhere.  More  striking  still  is  the  spirit  of  militarism 
in  the  secondary  schools,  where  the  glory  that  was 
Greece  and  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome  have  been 
taught  with  an  ever  increasing  tendency  to  Prussian 
Schneid.  Many  of  the  secondary  school-teachers  are 
officers  in  the  reserve  forces  or  the  Landsturm,  an  in- 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN  THE  SCHOOLS       343 

vasion  of  the  temple  of  Minerva  by  the  spirit  of  Mars 
which  has  been  encouraged  by  the  higher  school  authori- 
ties. It  means  that  the  spirit  of  high  personal  honor 
and  devotion  to  the  Fatherland  is  coupled  with  a  control 
of  men  and  a  demeanor  toward  the  students  that  sets 
perfect  discipline  and  high  national  patriotism  above 
every  other  consideration.  It  is  but  natural  that  such 
men  should  take  as  their  model  the  officers'  class, 
socially  so  much  superior  to  that  of  the  teacher,  and 
that  they  should  bring  into  the  schools,  along  with 
high  national  ideals,  a  further  deepening  of  the  caste 
spirit. 

This  spirit  of  caste  is,  as  we  have  seen,  still  further 
encouraged  by  the  fact  that  the  secondary  school  student 
is  the  possessor  of  a  special  class  privilege,  the  one-year 
miUtary  service.  It  is  a  privilege  which  brings  con- 
siderable cost  upon  the  family  of  the  student,  for  while 
the  Volksschule  is  practically  free  in  Prussia  and  attended 
by  so  small  a  cost  in  the  other  states  as  to  be  a  burden 
to  no  parent,  in  the  secondary  schools  the  tuition  cost 
averages  twenty  to  twenty-five  dollars  annually,  and 
even  if  he  study  no  further  after  the  service  examination 
{Ahschlusspriijung)  has  secured  him  his  pri\ilege  of 
one-year  service,  the  ''volunteer"  soldier  has  to  bear 
the  expense  of  his  equipment  and  board  during  his  year 
of  service.  In  return,  the  "volunteer"  has  certain 
much-coveted  rights,  such  as  the  pri\dlege  of  hving 
outside  the  barracks,  the  freedom  from  certain  menial 
duties,  the  postponement  of  service  four  years  later 
than  the  conscript  and  the  right  of  choice  as  to  the 
arm  of  the  service  he  wishes  to  enter.  More  important 
still,  he  may  advance  to  subordinate  office  during  his 
service,  and  later,  if  he  is  capable,  be  commissioned 
as  an  officer  of  the  reserve  forces,  with  the  social  pres- 
tige thereto  attached.  The  "one-year  privilege"  is 
closely  watched  over  by  the  Imperial  School  Commis- 
sion, and  the  entry  of  incompetents  among  the  "vol- 


344    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

unteers"  is  barred  by  a  rigid  examination,  rigidly  ad- 
ministered. The  privileges  accorded  to  the  "one-year 
volunteers"  make  of  these  young  men,  who  constitute 
about  3  per  cent  of  the  total  number  enrolled  under 
the  imperial  colors  each  year,  a  special  class  and  intro- 
duce into  the  schools  a  spirit  which  the  opponents  of 
the  system  in  Germany  characterize  as  highly  un- 
democratic. We  have  seen  that  the  social  privileges 
attaching  to  this  arrangement  bring  into  the  secondary 
schools  numbers  of  young  men  who  would  best  serve 
the  Fatherland  by  preparing  for  trade  or  commerce, 
and  that  indirectly  through  its  working,  numbers 
tend  to  crowd  into  the  universities  and  later  overcrowd 
the  professions. 

The  growth  of  the  military  spirit  in  the  schools  has 
been  strongly  encouraged  by  the  state.  "I  am  looking 
for  soldiers,"  declared  the  Emperor  in  1890  in  calling 
together  the  conference  which  resulted  in  the  increase 
of  Realschulen.  That  the  miUtarizing  of  the  schools 
has  been  of  immense  advantage  to  the  army  as  a  ma- 
chine of  offense  and  defense  has  been  abundantly  proved 
by  the  history  of  the  great  war.  That  this  govern- 
mental encouragement  of  militarism  in  the  schools  has 
gone  hand  in  hand  with  the  discouragement  of  Hberal 
tendencies  is  the  burden  of  lament  of  Radical  and  Social- 
ist papers  whenever  the  school  question  has  come  up 
for  discussion.  In  1890  the  Emperor  charged  that  the 
schools  were  not  adequately  performing  their  duty  in 
combating  the  spread  of  SociaKst  propaganda,  and  the 
same  charge  is  constantly  repeated  in  the  Conservative 
press  and  in  parliament.  "We  are  now  in  the  midst  of 
a  struggle  about  the  conditions  of  Hfe,"  declared  the 
Conservative  representative  Heckenroth  in  the  Reichstag 
in  191 2.  "In  this  struggle  we  demand  that  the  teachers 
stand  on  the  side  of  Christians  and  patriots,  and  that 
they  make  the  children  pious.  God-fearing  and  strong 
in  faith,  so  that  the  young  people  may  give  to  God 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN  THE   SCHOOLS       345 

what  is  God's  and  also  hold  faith  to  their  earthly  ruler. 
This  is  our  ideal  of  school  and  education." 

This  ideal  is  that  of  the  Prussian  ministry  as  well  as 
of  Clerical  and  Conservative  circles ;  and  especially  in 
Prussia,  Bavaria  and  Saxony  teachers  to  whom  a  sus- 
picion of  radical  tendencies  attaches  are  apt  to  feel 
the  weight  of  governmental  displeasure.  The  with- 
holding of  promotion,  pubhc  censure,  suspension  and 
even  removal  from  ofhce  are  weapons  which  may  be 
brought  into  play  against  any  teacher  whom  the  govern- 
ment officials  suspect  of  a  share  in  Radical  or  Socialist 
propaganda.  Naturally  these  things  show  themselves 
more  in  Prussia  than  elsewhere,  and  most  of  all  in  the 
Prussian  East,  where  the  elementary  schools  are  es- 
pecially exposed  to  reactionary  influences.  Occasion- 
ally, if  the  Radical  newspapers  are  to  be  believed,  the 
officials  go  even  farther  in  their  effort  to  make  the 
teachers  do  positive  work  for  the  government  cause  in 
a  close  election,  in  such  cases  the  district  inspectors 
being  the  agents  of  communication.  Thus  in  the  Reichs- 
tag election  of  191 2  the  attention  of  the  teachers  in  an 
East  Prussian  district  was  called  to  the  coming  election, 
and  when  the  Social  Democratic  candidate  was  finally 
successful,  one  of  the  primary  teachers  was  given  five 
days  in  which  to  make  report  as  to  why  he  had  not 
voted.  The  attitude  of  the  Conservative  ministry  in 
such  a  case  has  been  this :  The  SociaHst  is  an  enemy 
to  the  state  and  no  person  can  be  tolerated  in  the  state's 
service  who  in  any  way  gives  the  party  of  revolution 
aid  or  encouragement.  Like  the  soldier  and  the  employee 
of  the  postal,  telegraph  or  customs  service,  the  teacher 
is  expected  to  stand  by  the  government  through  thick 
and  thin. 

Such  instances  of  direct  interference  in  the  personal 
liberties  of  teachers  have  been  rare,  for  the  latter  are 
as  a  class  both  by  nature  and  training  faithful  servants 
of  the  state.     Intense  pride  in  the  greatness  of  united 


346    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Germany  and  a  patriotic  devotion  to  the  Fatherland 
are  nowhere  stronger  than  among  teachers,  the  success 
of  whose  work  was  splendidly  apparent  in  the  oneness  of 
Germany's  response  to  the  call  to  the  colors  in  July 
and  August,  1914.  That  the  old  separatism  and  jeal- 
ousy of  the  petty  states  have  given  way  to  a  broad 
enthusiasm  for  the  German  Fatherland,  one  and  in- 
divisible, is  largely  due  to  the  devoted  teacher  whose 
obscure  and  ill-rewarded  work  has  nowhere  borne  richer 
fruit  than  in  instilling  into  the  present  generation  the 
ideal  of  German  unity  and  Germany's  world  power. 
It  is  unfortunate  that  this  devotion  to  the  Fatherland 
and  reverence  for  the  monarchy  may  be  misused  by  a 
reactionary  ministry,  which  represents  the  success  of 
governmental  policy  as  one  and  the  same  with  the 
salvation  of  the  country.  The  fact  that  cases  of  in- 
fringement on  the  liberties  of  the  teacher  do  occur  tends 
to  have  two  unfortunate  results,  which  in  Prussia  at 
least  must  be  set  off  against  the  successful  sides  of  the 
school  system.  Either  the  teacher,  with  the  sturdy  in- 
dependence and  love  of  Hberty  which  are  basic  traits 
in  German  character,  is  driven  into  a  feeling  of  sullen 
discontent  that  manifests  itself  in  a  vote  "to  the  Left" 
whenever  possible;  or  being  of  more  pliable  sort,  he 
crooks  the  pregnant  hinges  of  the  knee  and  develops  a 
servility  toward  those  in  high  places  which  is  an  un- 
attractive reverse  to  ofiQcialdom  in  Prussia  and  else- 
where in  Germany.  Besides  the  great  majority  of  men 
in  high  official  positions  who  have  won  for  the  German 
school  system  its  unrivalled  place  in  the  world,  there 
are  not  a  few  school  principals  and  higher  officers  who 
are  petty  tyrants  to  those  under  them  and  models  of 
pliant  sycophancy  toward  everything  that  comes  from 
above. 

Such  manifestations  of  the  bureaucratic  spirit,  how- 
ever, leave  the  great  majority  of  German  teachers, 
both  secondary  and  elementary,  untroubled,  and  they 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN  THE   SCHOOLS      347 

go  ahead  wea\'ing  their  part  in  the  web  of  Germany's 
greatness.  Of  far  greater  importance  to  the  primary 
teacher  is  the  system  which  tends  to  exclude  him  from 
the  higher  positions  in  the  educational  system.  The 
secondary  school-teacher,  who  is  without  exception 
university-trained,  may  advance  by  the  stages  of  school 
principal  and  inspector  to  the  highest  administrative 
positions  in  the  educational  department,  or  if  his  cir- 
cumstances permit  further  study,  may  become  a  uni- 
versity professor.  Not  so  with  the  teacher  in  the  Volks- 
schule.  If  he  is  the  graduate  of  a  Biirgerschule  or  has 
had  other  opportunities,  he  may  become  principal  of 
an  elementary  school.  In  Saxony,  Hesse  and  Weimar 
he  may  study  from  four  to  six  semesters  at  the  university 
in  preparation  for  a  "pedagogical  certificate,"  which 
opens  the  way  to  higher  positions  in  the  school  adminis- 
tration, but  not  to  a  secondary  school  position.  It  is  a 
sign  of  progress  that  many  of  the  universities  have 
introduced  courses  especially  designed  for  teachers  in 
the  Volksschule  both  during  vacation  and  term  time. 
It  cannot  be  long  ere  Prussia  also  joins  in  this  forward 
movement,  which  while  retaining  the  elementary  teachers 
in  the  elementary  school  system,  nevertheless  opens  to 
them  fields  of  wider  actixaty;  but  for  the  present  the 
Prussian  universities  are  closed  to  elementary  teachers 
as  regularly  matriculated  students.  The  only  way  in 
which  they  can  enter  is  by  passing  the  regular  gradu- 
ation examination  of  a  secondary  school  of  nine-year 
course.  It  was  mainly  of  the  Prussian  system  that  Pro- 
fessor J.  Tews,  a  radical  school  reformer  of  Berlin,  was 
speaking  when  he  lamented  at  the  national  teachers' 
convention  in  191 2  :  "WTiile  other  states  are  developing 
their  institutions  of  youth,  the  German  Volksschule  re- 
mains narrowed  by  church  control  and  social  restrictions, 
the  teacher  a  servant  of  the  church  ;  and  in  order  to  pre- 
serve these  relations,  the  coming  army  of  teachers  is 
shut  out  from  the  sources  of  knowledge."/ 


348    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

"A  servant  of  the  church  !"  This  expression  suggests 
a  side  of  the  pubHc  school  system  of  Germany  which  is 
most  difficult  for  an  American  to  understand,  —  the 
side  of  church  control.  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be 
called  to  mind  that  in  Germany,  as  in  most  of  the  Euro- 
pean states,  church  and  state  are  still  united  with  a 
thousand  intertwinings.  As  the  result  of  a  struggle, 
lasting  with  interruptions  since  the  days  of  the  SaUc 
emperors  and  by  no  means  ended,  an  arrangement  has 
been  reached  in  all  of  the  states  of  the  German  empire 
by  which  the  supreme  authority  of  the  state  is  acknowl- 
edged in  all  that  relates  to  the  temporal  welfare  of  its 
citizens;  but  as  has  been  shown  in  Chapter  X  there 
is  still  considerable  doubt  as  to  the  line  dividing  tem- 
poral from  spiritual  interests.  Full  liberty  of  conscience 
is  guaranteed  in  all  of  the  German  states,  nevertheless 
rehgion  is  established,  that  is,  the  state  still  cares  for 
the  material  welfare  of  the  three  approved  churches, 
and  the  clergy  —  evangehcal,  Roman  Catholic  and 
Jewish  —  are  theoretically  public  officers.  In  case  of 
the  Roman  CathoHc  clergy,  the  state  imposes  con- 
ditions for  their  education  and  exercises  an  oversight 
over  the  seminaries  and  lyceums  to  see  that  these 
conditions  are  fulfilled.  The  bishops,  and  in  some 
states  the  individual  priests,  must  take  an  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  state  authority  before  they  can  assume 
spiritual  office.  The  evangelical  church  in  Prussia, 
Saxony  and  other  Protestant  states  is  still  more  closely 
interlocked  with  the  state,  the  ruler  being  in  theory 
the  supreme  bishop  of  the  church,  while  the  state  con- 
trols completely  the  education  of  the  clergy,  appoints 
or  confirms  all  higher  church  officials  and  guarantees 
the  support  of  the  church  from  a  special  tax,  which  in 
Berlin  has  averaged  as  high  as  20  per  cent  of  the  total 
income  tax.  While,  as  has  been  stated,  full  liberty  of 
worship  is  guaranteed  to  every  one,  the  tax  officials 
follow  up  with  great  zeal  the  collection  of  the  church 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN  THE   SCHOOLS      349 

tax  even  from  foreigners  temporarily  resident  in  Ger- 
many, and  in  Prussia  it  is  necessary  that  those  who 
would  avoid  paying  it  should  formally  and  legally  de- 
clare their  separation  from  the  church.  More  than 
one  American  and  EngUshman  staying  in  Berhn  or 
other  Prussian  cities  has  been  astonished  at  having  to 
undergo  a  rigid  cross  examination  by  the  tax  police 
as  to  his  rehgious  faith,  and  even  certificates  of  baptism 
may  be  required  as  collateral  evidence  from  those  who 
would  escape  the  church  tax. 

The  fact  is,  that  the  average  German  looks  upon  his 
religion  as  being  as  much  a  matter  of  pubHc  concern  as 
his  nationaUty,  and  feels  no  resentment  in  being  tagged 
as  Protestant,  Cathohc,  Jew  or  Dissenter  as  pubhcly 
as  he  is  classified  as  merchant,  farmer  or  official.  It  is 
but  natural,  therefore,  that  he  should  look  upon  religion 
as  an  essential  part  of  his  child's  training,  to  be  under- 
taken and  watched  over  by  the  state  as  much  as  train- 
ing in  algebra  or  history.  The  oft-repeated  claim  of  the 
Clericals  and  Conservatives  that  "the  church  is  the 
mother  of  the  school"  surely  finds  historical  justification, 
for  ever  since  the  Protestant  Reformation  put  education 
in  Protestant  Germany  into  secular  hands,  the  church 
has  watched  closely  to  see  that  Luther's  maxim  be 
carried  out :  "Let  the  chief  est  and  most  general  subject 
of  study  be  the  Holy  Scriptures."  In  fact,  one  may 
say  that  the  whole  history  of  education  in  Germany 
since  the  Renaissance  has  been  one  long-continued 
effort  to  free  the  universities  and  schools  from  the  wor- 
ship of  barren  ideals  of  the  past  on  the  one  side  and 
from  jealous  guardianship  of  the  church  on  the  other. 
That  this  struggle  to  completely  secularize  scholarship 
was  won  first  in  the  universities  is  natural,  for  there  the 
more  enlightened  spirits  gather.  Since  the  day  when 
Frederick  the  Great  confirmed  the  doctrine  of  freedom 
of  instruction  (Lehrfreiheit) ,  the  German  professor  has 
studied  and  taught  in  an  atmosphere  abnost  chemically 


350    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

clean  of  ecclesiastical  control.  Again  and  again  attacks 
have  been  made  upon  this  freedom  of  scholarship ;  and 
here  and  there  a  Roman  Catholic  bishop  has  ordered  a 
boycott  on  the  lectures  of  some  liberal  historian  or 
philosopher  in  Bavaria,  or  the  Prussian  church  consis- 
tories have  shown  themselves  overzealous  in  getting 
an  ultra-orthodox  apologist  into  a  theological  chair  at 
Gottingen  or  Rostock  or  Halle;  but  such  action  has 
always  provoked  a  widespread  and  spirited  protest 
from  intellectual  circles,  and  the  state  authorities  have 
been  well-nigh  unwavering  in  defending  those  accused 
of  dangerous  heresies.  PubHc  opinion  insists  that  the 
universities  shall  guarantee  a  freedom  of  investigation 
and  instruction  in  the  field  of  religion  as  absolute  and 
unconditional  as  in  physics  or  biology. 

This  freedom,  however,  appHes  only  to  the  universities. 
The  mind  of  the  gymnasium  upper-classman  is  held  to 
be  still  too  immature  to  entertain  heterodox  ideas,  and 
all  religious  teaching  in  the  primary  and  secondary 
schools  is  strictly  confessional.  In  fact,  the  principle  of 
rehgious  teaching  in  the  schools  is  closely  bound  up  with 
another  principle,  recognized  throughout  the  greater 
part  of  Germany,  that  of  the  uniconfessional  school. 
That  the  school  should  be  organized  according  to  the 
religious  faith  of  a  majority  of  its  pupils  and  tagged  as 
evangehcal,  Roman  Catholic  or  Jewish,  is  a  principle 
that  is  rigorously  carried  out  through  almost  the  whole 
of  the  empire.^  Nor  is  this  splitting  up  into  sects  so 
inconvenient  for  the  school  system  as  might  be  irn- 
agined,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  confessional  lines  in 
Germany  are  unfortunately  also  usually  geographical 
Hnes.  As  we  have  seen,  the  valleys  of  the  Rhine,  the 
Main  and  the  Danube  are  in  the  main  Roman  Catholic ; 
the  northern  and  eastern  plain,  except  the  Polish  prov- 
inces, with  the  highlands  of  the  centre  and  in  part  of 

iThe  exceptions  are  Baden,  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Hesse,  Saxe- 
Meiningen,  Saxe- Weimar  and  the  city  of  Hamburg. 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN  THE   SCHOOLS      351 

the  Southwest,  largely  Protestant.  The  di\dding  lines 
which  make  a  community  overwhelmingly  Protestant 
or  Roman  Catholic  have  detennined  historically  the 
confessional  character  of  a  great  majority  of  the  second- 
ary schools,  and  in  the  older  Gymnasia  the  principal 
and  a  majority  of  the  teachers  are  evangelical  or  CathoHc 
as  a  result  of  traditions  which  run  clear  back  to  the 
Reformation.  Owing  to  various  causes,  the  interest 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  population  in  secondary  educa- 
tion is  proportionately  less  than  that  of  the  Protestant ; 
as  a  result  we  find  that  in  the  larger  cities,  where  since 
1890  many  Realschulen  have  sprung  up,  there  is  usually 
one  Roman  CathoHc  secondary  school  and  sometimes  a 
Jewish  institution,  while  the  others  are  Protestant.  In 
such  cases  no  constraint  is  exercised  to  force  parents 
to  send  their  children  to  a  school  of  a  certain  confession, 
and  in  the  smaller  places  the  school  usually  contains  a 
respectable  minority  of  evangehcals  or  Cathohcs,  as 
the  case  may  be.  If  the  number  of  pupils  belonging  to 
the  minority  is  large  enough,  classes  in  religion  are  formed 
for  their  instruction  by  one  of  their  own  faith ;  if  not, 
they  are  sent  to  some  other  school,  or  even  to  approved 
private  instructors  for  their  work  in  rehgion. 

In  the  Gymnasia  and  Realschulen,  where  an  atmosphere 
of  higher  scholarship  reigns,  confessional  differences  are 
of  small  importance.  In  the  great  mass  of  the  Volks- 
schiilen,  however,  they  are  of  the  greatest  weight,  and 
may  have  a  direct  eSect  upon  the  efi&ciency  of  the  school. 
Thus  the  Prussian  law  of  1906  authorizes  the  formation 
of  a  new  school  in  a  city  of  over  five  thousand  inhabit- 
ants if  there  are  120  children,  or  in  a  rural  community 
60  children,  of  a  confession  different  from  that  of  the 
existing  school.  The  result  is  sometimes  the  organiza- 
tion of  a  one-class  or  two-class  school  besides  a  highly 
efficient  school  of  eight  classes. 

While  there  is  httle  objection  among  German  school- 
men and  poUtical  thinkers  to  the  teaching  of  religion 


352     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

I 
in  the  schools,  there  is  considerable  opposition  to  the 

splitting  up  of  the  school  children  on  confessional  Hnes. 
Baden,  Hesse  and  several  of  the  smaller  states  do  not 
favor  the  uniconfessional  school,  but  train  their  chil-  , 
dren  in  so-called  ^'Simultan^'  or  ''Paritdtic^'  schools,  I 
where  the  confession  of  the  teachers  follows  the  con- 
fessional percentage  of  the  state.  In  the  Grand  Duchy 
of  Hesse  over  90  per  cent  of  the  children  attend  these 
schools.  In  Prussia  their  introduction  meets  with  the 
determined  opposition  of  the  Conservative  and  Clerical 
parties,  and  they  make  up  only  2.28  per  cent  of  the  total 
number  of  elementary  schools,  being  found  especially  in 
the  eastern  marches,  where  the  poKtical  and  economic 
situation  make  them  especially  advisable,  and  in  the 
district  around  Wiesbaden,  where  Prussia  received 
them  as  a  tradition.  In  Bavaria  ofi&cial  opposition  to  '. 
them  is  no  less  intense  than  in  the  great  kingdom  to  * 
the  north;  but  it  has  often  been  noted  by  schoolmen 
that  the  confessionless  schools  are  very  popular  among 
school  patrons  in  the  southern  kingdom.  Ii?  Munich 
the  number  of  children  applying  annually  to  the  few 
SimuUan  schools  is  far  in  excess  of  the  vacancies.  Not- 
withstanding this,  the  principle  of  the  confessional 
school  finds  opposition  only  in  Socialist  and  Radical 
circles.  How  far  Conservative  and  Clerical  leaders 
go  in  the  opposite  direction  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
demand  is  frequently  made  on  the  school  authorities 
to  divide  the  Hilfsschulen,  that  is,  those  for  defective 
classes  and  even  those  for  tubercular  children,  accord- 
ing to  confession ;  and  that  a  similar  demand  in  the 
case  of  the  continuation  schools,  together  with  a  de- 
mand that  religious  instruction  be  made  obligatory 
in  their  program,  is  one  of  the  chief  causes  which  has 
thus  far  prevented  the  passage  of  a  law  bringing  this 
class  of  schools  under  state  control  in  Prussia. 

In  Prussia,  as  elsewhere  in  Germany,  the  confessional 
school  is  a  compromise.     It  is  a  compromise  which  the 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN  THE   SCHOOLS      353 

great  majority  of  Prussian  patriots,  with  memories  of 
the  Kulturkampf  still  in  mind,  are  quite  willing  to 
endure.  They  are  satisfied  with  the  principle,  firmly 
maintained  during  that  struggle,  that  the  schools  shall  be 
under  the  control  of  the  state,  and  point  a  warning 
finger  at  America,  where  the  public  schools  do  not  in- 
clude, in  the  earher  years  at  least,  a  considerable  per- 
centage of  Roman  Cathohc  children.  At  present  while 
over  37  per  cent  of  the  registered  school  children  in 
Prussia  are  Roman  Cathohc,  under  30  per  cent  of  the 
schools  belong  to  this  confession,  proof  enough  that 
the  minority  is  already  making  considerable  concessions 
in  school  attendance.  WHiether,  as  is  contended,  the 
gradual  increase  of  SimuUan  schools  would  lead  to  the 
formation  of  a  separate  Roman  Cathohc  school  system, 
which  uiider  the  present  law  could  not  be  prevented, 
is  a  matter  on  which  one  can  have  his  own  views.  Thus 
far  opinion  seems  overwhelming  that  Prussia  does  better 
to  retain  the  present  confessional  school  with  all  its 
drawbacks  than  to  run  the  risk  of  losing  from  the  state's 
schools  a  large  percentage  of  Roman  Cathohc  children 
and  driving  in  still  farther  the  wedge  between  the 
confessions. 

Whether  in  confessional  school  or  not,  the  teaching 
of  religion  in  the  school  itself  is  regarded  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and  beyond  a  few  Radicals  and  the  Social 
Democrats  and  a  few  schoolmen  who  have  progressed 
far  beyond  their  fellows,  there  is  no  sentiment  in  favor 
of  aboHshing  it.  In  practically  all  of  the  German  states 
it  occupies  the  first  place  on  the  school  program,  where 
it  is  given  the  choice  hour,  the  first  one  in  the  morning, 
from  three  to  four  hours  per  week  in  the  Volksschule 
and  from  two  to  three  in  the  secondary  schools.  In 
the  latter  religious  teaching  falls  into  the  hands  of  in- 
structors who  have  elected  the  subject  along  with 
other,  usually  humanistic,  subjects  for  their  academic 
preparation.     There  is  frequently  a  sharp  colhsion  be- 


354    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

tween  the  individual  conscience  of  the  teacher  and  the 
orthodox  material  which  he  is  required  to  impart.  The 
teacher  is  always  a  university  man,  brought  up  in  the 
searching  scientific  methods  which  provoke  criticism 
and  doubt ;  he  is  face  to  face  with  immature  youth, 
to  whom  he  must  teach  the  Bible,  the  catechism,  the 
doctrines  of  the  faith  and  some  church  history  and 
patristic  literature,  with  the  use  of  text-books  and 
readers  approved  by  the  church  authorities,  under  the 
inspection  of  the  senior  among  the  local  clergy.  The 
result  is  frequently  a  collision  between  the  individual 
conscience  of  the  teacher  and  the  demands  of  his  career, 
leading  to  such  experiences  as  Max  Dreyer,  himself 
formerly  a  secondary  school-teacher,  mirrored  in  1899 
in  somewhat  exaggerated  form  in  his  play  Der  Probe- 
kandidat.  To  a  man  of  earnest  personal  religious  con- 
victions the  situation  offers  a  fascinating  opportunity; 
but  to  the  German  secondary  school-teacher,  whose  at- 
titude toward  religion  has  of  recent  years  grown  to  be  a 
more  and  more  formal  one,  the  temptation  to  treat 
religion  in  the  formal  way  in  which  other  academic 
subjects  are  treated  is  usually  too  strong  to  be  resisted. 
If  he  has  strong  rehgious  convictions,  they  are  usually 
other  than  those  contained  in  catechism  and  church 
exegesis,  and  he  must  say  to  himself,  as  Mephistopheles 
to  Faust : 

"  The  best  thou  leamest,  in  the  end, 
Thou  dar'st  not  tell  the  youngsters — never! " 

The  alternative  of  purely  formal  treatment  is  all  too 
easy.  The  subject-matter  of  faith  becomes  a  corpus 
vile  for  the  exercise  of  memory  and  the  powers  of  con- 
centration. To  most  secondary  school  students  the 
historic  side  of  their  religious  study  is  interesting  and 
the  contents  well  mastered,  but  compulsory  study  of 
religion  is  a  failure  as  promoting  personal  rehgious  im- 
pressions  at   this   impressionable   age.    The   Prussian 


STATE   AND    CHURCH  IN  THE   SCHOOLS       355 

ministry  of  education  has  persistently  sought  to  pre- 
vent the  classes  in  religion  from  becoming  simply  formal 
by  emphasizing  the  importance  of  intrusting  this  work 
only  to  men  of  high  character  and  personal  attractive- 
ness. But  teachers  of  such  sort  are  rare  an>irvhere,  and 
the  net  result  is  that  most  boys  go  through  the  pliant 
years  of  adolescence  with  little  religious  experience  and 
enter  the  university  with  the  feeling  that  the  hour  in 
religion  was  a  part  of  the  school  drudgery  of  which  they 
are  glad  to  be  rid.  The  secondary  school-teacher  should 
not  of  course  be  held  responsible  for  the  reHgious  in- 
differentism  so  characteristic  of  the  intellectual  classes 
in  Germany  since  the  eighties.  When  the  time  is  ripe 
for  a  great  revival  in  evangelical  Germany,  it  is  probable 
that  the  secondary  schools  will  share  abundantly  in  it 
and  that  the  classes  in  religion  will  take  on  a  new 
vitality. 

In  the  primary  school  the  teaching  of  religion  assumes 
an  even  more  important  position,  for  the  reason  that 
fewer  concessions  need  to  be  made  to  the  struggle  be- 
tween the  scientihc  spirit  and  religious  faith.  Practically 
every  German  state  puts  the  moral  and  rehgious  training 
of  the  child  first  among  the  requirements  of  the  elemen- 
tary school.  As  stated  on  numerous  occasions  by  the 
Prussian  ministry,  the  object  of  the  Prussian  Volks- 
schule  is  "the  religious,  moral  and  patriotic  culture  of 
youth  by  means  of  education  and  instruction,  as  well 
as  the  introduction  into  such  general  knowledge  and 
skill  as  is  necessary  for  civU  Kfe."  In  carrying  out  this 
moral  and  reHgious  purpose  instruction  in  rehgion  plays 
also  an  important  part  in  the  training  of  teachers.  Of  the 
137  seminaries  for  elementary  teachers  in  Prussia  (1902) 
only  six  were  "Paritdtic"  or  not  uniconfessional ;  and 
every  care  is  taken  that  the  future  teachers  of  the 
children  of  the  people  shall  be  well  grounded  in  the 
faith.  The  Prussian  law  of  1906  permits  the  formation 
of  a  new  class  in  religion  provided  twelve  pupils  belong 


356    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

to  a  different  faith  from  that  prevailing  in  the  school 
which  they  attend.  This  is  going  very  far  in  admitting 
the  rehgious  rights  of  the  minority;  but  law  and  prac- 
tice never  go  so  far  as  to  permit  any  scholar  to  leave 
school  without  regular  religious  instruction.  ''Better 
religion  poorly  taught  than  none  at  all,"  they  say,  for 
to  the  average  German  citizen  the  French  schools 
with  their  lack  of  all  rehgious  training  are  a  horror. 

Religion  and  Fatherland  then  are  the  two  pillars 
upon  which  German  elementary  instruction  rests. 
Conservative  circles,  for  whom  throne  and  altar  must 
stand  or  fall  together,  cannot  conceive  it  possible  that 
the  great  fabric  of  Germany's  educational  system  could 
endure  without  being  firmly  braced  on  both  supports. 
Radicals  and  Social  Democrats,  however,  object  to  the 
collocation.  ReHgion  in  the  schools,  they  say,  means 
too  often  narrow  orthodoxy,  and  they  cannot  forget 
that  since  1848  the  forces  of  orthodoxy  in  Prussia  have 
repeatedly  been  debased  into  tools  for  repressing  the 
popular  will.  It  is  not  merely  that  these  radical  political 
thinkers  look  upon  religion  as  a  private  matter  with 
which  the  state  has  nothing  to  do ;  they  fear  the  effect 
of  the  class  in  reUgion  in  the  hands  of  political  reaction- 
aries. "As  religion  is  now  taught  in  the  schools," 
they  assert,  "the  effect  is  not  to  cultivate  independence 
of  thought,  but  to  instil  in  the  mind  of  the  child  the 
idea  that  to  worship  God  and  to  honor  the  king  are 
one  and  the  same."  The  foundation  of  this  feehng  was 
laid  in  the  Prussia  of  half  a  century  ago,  when  the 
church  became  the  handmaid  of  reaction,  and  ever 
since  that  time  the  evangelical  church  has  been  well- 
nigh  without  influence  on  Hberal  and  democratic  circles 
in  Germany.  The  Roman  Catholic  church  has,  as  we 
have  seen,  through  the  deep-going  democratization  of 
its  priesthood  and  its  readiness  to  oppose  feudal  in- 
fluences in  the  government,  kept  a  stronger  hold  upon 
the  masses. 


STATE  AND   CHURCH  IN   THE  SCHOOLS      357 

This  guardianship  of  the  church  over  education  shows 
itself  in  the  control  which  the  clergy  actually  exercise 
upon  the  conduct  of  the  schools.  In  the  secondary 
schools  it  goes  only  to  the  point  of  supervising  religious 
instruction,  a  right  guaranteed  to  the  chief  local  clergy- 
man of  each  confession  for  the  class  in  his  own  faith. 
This  right  of  inspection  is  very  loosely  exercised  and 
goes  little  farther  than  the  supervision  of  the  text-books 
used,  the  results  of  the  religious  instruction  being  easily 
checked  up  when  the  pupil  comes  up  for  confirmation. 
In  the  Volksschule,  however,  the  range  of  clerical  inter- 
ference goes  much  farther  and  amounts  in  many  rural 
districts  of  both  North  and  South  Germany  to  bringing 
the  entire  elementary  school  system  under  the  church. 
In  the  larger  places  the  local  supervision  of  the  schools 
falls  of  course  into  the  trained  hands  of  the  school 
principal  or  a  member  of  the  municipal  administrative 
board,  and  the  clerical  members  of  the  school  board 
simply  oversee  religious  instruction ;  but  in  the  country 
districts  in  the  two  leading  German  monarchies,  Prussia 
and  Bavaria,  the  leading  local  clergyman  is  the  regular 
local  inspector.  This  condition  of  affairs  is  a  constant 
thorn  in  the  side  of  progressive  teachers  in  the  Volks- 
schule, who  thus  find  themselves  hampered  by  a  super- 
vision which  is  in  no  sense  professionally  trained,  and 
often  at  the  mercy  of  an  espionage  which  is  narrow  and 
intolerant.  Ever  since  the  Kulturkampf  Prussian  minis- 
ters have  asserted  the  principle  that  the  state  has  a  right 
to  appoint  all  local  and  district  school  inspectors ;  never- 
theless, in  practice  not  only  the  former  but  a  considerable 
percentage  of  the  latter  are  taken  from  the  ranks  of  the 
clergy.  The  explanation  is  of  course  to  be  sought  in 
the  control  of  the  legislative  affairs  of  the  kingdom  by 
Conservative  and  Clerical  forces.  In  Bavaria,  where 
the  Centre  party  has  practically  controlled  legislation 
since  1869,  the  determination  to  keep  the  schools  under 
ecclesiastical  domination  has  been  equally  great.     Here 


358    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

again,  the  more  liberal  southwestern  states,  Baden, 
Wiirtemberg  and  Hesse,  and  some  of  the  smaller 
Thuringian  states,  have  shown  that  it  is  possible  to  do 
away  with  clerical  control  without  driving  religion 
from  the  schools  or  lessening  their  mxoral  power. 

The  charge  that  the  schools  are  unduly  influenced 
by  the  church  is  an  old  one  in  Germany  and  is  heard 
with  ever  increasing  insistency.  Progressive  school- 
men and  many  patriots  of  no  decidedly  radical  leanings 
yearn  for  the  time  when  the  entire  inspection  and  con- 
trol of  the  schools  shall  be  taken  out  of  clerical  hands 
and  put  into  those  of  professionally  trained  schoolmen, 
such  as  now  supervise  the  secondary  schools  in  the 
empire  and  the  elementary  schools  in  the  cities.  How 
soon  this  state  of  affairs  will  be  reached  depends  like 
other  reforms  in  the  school  system  upon  pohtical  progress 
in  Prussia  and  Bavaria.  Thus  far  Conservative  and 
Clerical  opposition  have  blocked  all  efforts  toward 
reform  in  the  largest  German  states;  and  here  again 
Prussia,  which  is  accustomed  to  lead  in  the  cultural  as 
well  as  the  material  things  of  the  nation,  has  fallen 
behind  in  the  march  of  liberal  ideas. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

The  Press  and  Public  Opinion 

Since  the  day  when  the  bankrupt  Mayence  genius 
invented  movable  types,  Germany  has  with  few  inter- 
ruptions held  the  first  place  among  printing  and  pub- 
lishing nations.  Her  annual  output  in  books  surpasses 
the  combined  production  of  France,  England  and  the 
United  States ;  and  even  if  we  subtract  pamphlets, 
which  in  German  statistics  are  rated  as  books,  and 
which  bring  into  the  world  many  things  that  appear  in 
other  countries  in  magazines,  the  Fatherland  exceeds 
in  its  contribution  to  this  "paper  age"  any  two  other 
nations.  The  explanation  is  to  be  found  not  merely 
in  the  high  culture  of  the  nation,  but  also  in  the  method- 
ical spirit,  which  drives  the  German  to  analyze,  corre- 
late and  formulate,  seeking  not  merely  apostles  for  his 
patiently  won  ideas  but  often  clearness  for  the  writer 
through  the  very  formulation  of  his  ideas.  In  no  land 
is  access  to  the  press  so  cheap  and  easy,  in  no  land  are 
the  rewards  for  the  author  proportionately  so  large. 
Unfortunately  also  in  no  land  are  there  so  many  worth- 
less books  brought  into  the  world,  from  the  machine- 
made  doctor  dissertation  with  its  pathetic  testimony 
to  years  of  youthful  vigor  wasted  in  counting  the 
hairs  in  Homer's  beard  down  to  the  penny  manuals 
on  "How  to  learn  French  in  Three  Weeks."  The 
Germans  pay  the  penalty  of  a  nation  which  produces 
each  year  a  mass  of  creative  scholarly  research  with 
the  by-products  of  boneless  pedantry  and  speculative 
dilettanteism. 

359 


360    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Besides  the  book  press,  the  periodical  press  rolls  up 
each  month  and  each  day  its  vast  flood.  Every  science, 
art  and  industry,  every  branch  of  commerce,  every  po- 
litical fraction  has  its  press;  every  handicraft,  yes, 
almost  every  forceful  personahty  in  the  country  has  its 
periodical  exponent.  The  press  directory  of  1913  men- 
tions II  periodicals  devoted  to  the  continuation  school 
system  alone.  The  Schornsteinfeger,  published  monthly 
in  Berlin,  ministers  to  the  literary  needs  of  chimney 
sweeps;  the  Allgemeine  deutsche  Kaseblatt  to  those  of 
the  cheese  workers :  a  specialization  in  the  printed 
representatives  of  Germany's  multifarious  industries 
confronts  us  as  hairsplit  and  bewildering  as  in  the  in- 
dustrial branches  themselves.  Only  indeed  in  a  land 
where  the  division  of  industry  and  the  organization  of 
commerce  are  carried  as  far  as  in  Germany  could  this 
vast  array  of  trade  periodicals  live  and  flourish. 

On  the  other  hand  the  number  of  popular  periodicals 
dealing  with  history,  political  science  and  geography  is 
small:  the  Deutsche  Rundschau,  founded  by  the  late 
Julius  Rodenberg,  the  Suddeutsche  Monatshejte  and  the 
Deutsche  Revue  are  the  only  ones  which  deserve  to  be 
put  beside  half  a  dozen  or  more  great  British  reviews. 
In  the  field  of  artistic  and  literary  criticism  there  is 
none  which  in  the  variety  and  brilliance  of  its  contents 
appeals  to  so  large  a  public  as  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes. 
Nor  do  the  more  popular  Westermanns  or  Velhagen  und 
Klasings  Monatshejte,  Nord  und  Siid  or  the  time-honored 
Gartenlauhe  attain  to  the  vivid  contemporary  interest 
of  a  few  of  the  best  American  illustrated  magazines. 
The  out-of-door  element,  so  attractive  a  part  of  British 
and  American  magazines,  has  only  recently  made  its 
appearance  in  German  periodicals  and  is  to  be  found 
mainly  in  publications  devoted  to  Alpine,  automobile 
and  aviation  clubs  or  other  special  sports.  If,  how- 
ever, the  German  press  has  something  less  to  offer 
to  the  leisure  hours  of  the  man  of  general  culture  than 


THE  PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  361 

that  of  the  western  nations,  to  the  specialist  and  scholar, 
whether  he  be  a  specialist  in  Sanscrit,  stamp  collecting 
or  soap  boiling,  it  brings  each  year  a  wealth  of  material 
which  serves  later  on  as  a  reservoir  for  the  writers  of 
other  nations. 

The  spirit  of  the  German  press  is  then  that  of  German 
scholarship.  It  shows  the  same  enthusiasm  for  truth, 
the  same  conscientiousness  in  the  search  for  it  and  the 
same  honesty  in  proclaiming  it  as  have  set  their  stamp 
on  German  scholarship  everywhere.  The  reverse  of 
this  in  pedantry  of  manner  and  boring  tediousness  of 
portrayal  is  not  lacking.  The  daily  press,  to  which  this 
chapter  is  chiefly  devoted,  shows  these  characteristics 
in  an  even  greater  degree.  The  most  popular  child  of 
the  printing  press,  the  newspaper,  had  also  its  birth  in 
Germany,  and  so  far  as  numbers  are  concerned,  Germany 
is  still  above  all  its  home.  Exact  statistics  are  lacking, 
but  in  1908  the  number  of  daily  papers  was  estimated 
by  competent  authorities  at  four  thousand,  of  which 
Dr.  Robert  Brunhuber,^  an  expert  in  this  field,  counts 
about  four  hundred  organs  of  considerable  importance. 
Of  these  perhaps  35  are  papers  of  great  influence,  of 
which  over  one-half  appear  in  Berlin  and  less  than  half 
a  dozen  outside  of  Prussia.  In  the  aggregate  the  Ger- 
man daily  press  rises  then  to  tremendous  figures.  The 
post-office  department  acts  as  the  agent  of  the  press, 
receiving  subscriptions  at  all  offices  and  distributing 
the  papers,  and  reckoning  by  post-office  statistics, 
German  observers  set  the  distribution  of  papers  in  the 
year  1906  at  between  twelve  and  twenty  million  copies 
per  day.  This  mighty  flood,  which  pours  itself  daily 
over  all  parts  of  Germany,  rippling  to  the  most  distant 
dune  villages  of  the  Baltic  coast  and  the  eeriest  nests 
of  the  Bavarian  highlands,  flows  most  densely  in  the 
Rhine  valley.  Here  the  Cologne,  Diisseldorf  and  Dort- 
mund papers  find  their  way  into  every  hamlet  and  in 
^  Das  deulsche  Zeitungswesen. 


362     THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

the  industrial  centres  into  every  house.  In  the  Rhine 
Palatinate  the  average  is  one  daily  newspaper  to  every 
fifteen  thousand  inhabitants  in  the  entire  district. 

Through  this  great  flood,  from  the  Berlin  and  Frank- 
fort journals  down  to  the  provincial  ^^ General  Anzeiger^' 
("Official  Gazette")  is  a  long  journey  past  all  sorts  of 
newspaper  undertakings.  Most  of  the  larger  papers 
maintain  correspondence  bureaus  in  the  greater  German 
cities,  and  the  largest  also  in  foreign  capitals,  but  as 
in  the  case  of  other  lands,  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
news  comes  to  them  through  press  associations.  The 
great  German  press  association  is  Wolff's  Telegraphic 
Bureau,  which  differs  from  international  bureaus  hke 
Renter's  and  the  Agence  Havas  in  that  it  is  mainly 
national  in  its  scope,  and  differs  from  the  American  press 
agencies  in  being  directly  under  government  control. 
Wolff's  Bureau  counts  among  its  subscribers  practically 
all  the  important  papers  in  Germany,  its  despatches  are 
forwarded  over  the  imperial  telegraph  system  toll  free 
and  have  a  certain  precedence  over  private  messages,  and 
it  is  used,  as  we  shall  see,  to  disseminate  governmentally 
edited  news.  Besides  Wolff's,  there  are  in  Berlin  and 
other  larger  capitals  other  news  agencies  which  s.end  out 
information,  —  telegraphed,  printed,  mimeographed,  — 
flooding  the  newspaper  world  with  official,  semi-official, 
political  or  colorless  news  items,  which  play  a  great 
part  in  the  make-up  of  the  provincial  press.  The 
pirating  of  news  from  the  larger  journals  is  carried  on 
by  the  provincial  papers  in  Germany  in  a  way  that  is 
absolutely  conscienceless,  possibly  because,  as  will  be 
shown  below,  the  reading  public  seems  less  eager  for 
news  than  for  editorial  comments  thereon. 

This  borrowing  of  news  items  is  not,  however,  con- 
fined to  the  provincial  press.  As  we  have  seen,  the 
larger  papers  maintain  correspondents  in  foreign  capitals ; 
but  only  in  a  few  cases  is  this  correspondence  forwarded 
by  telegraph,   since   the  papers,   apparently  following 


THE  PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  363 

the  desires  of  the  reading  public,  prefer  to  spend  their 
money  on  literary  essays  and  scientific  treatises  rather 
than  on  telegraph  and  cable  tolls.  For  their  daily 
news  from  abroad  they  depend  on  Wolff's  Bureau, 
which  has  a  limited  staff  abroad,  but  derives  most  of 
its  information  through  the  great  international  agencies 
like  Renter's.  The  cheapest  and  readiest  source  of 
information  is  the  French  and  British  dailies,  whose 
news  columns  even  the  largest  Berlin  papers  do  not 
hesitate  to  use,  reproducing  with  a  generous  hand  news 
items  from  the  Times,  the  Daily  Chronicle  and  the 
Standard  forty-eight  hours  after  pubhcation  in  London. 
The  effect  on  Germany's  relations  with  the  outside 
world  of  this  dependence  on  British-influenced  news 
agencies  has  already  been  noted  (cf.  page  73  ff.).  Even 
more  important  for  the  development  of  public  sentiment 
at  home  is  the  lack  of  an  adequate,  independent  system 
of  telegraphic  correspondence  from  foreign  countries. 
The  greater  metropolitan  papers  which  do  maintain 
foreign  correspondents  have  not  succeeded  in  placing 
in  the  foreign  capitals  men  who  are  able  to  give  a  true 
picture  of  foreign  feehng  or  through  personal  influence 
and  adroitness  to  fill  the  semi-diplomatic  mission  of 
their  office,  with  the  result  that  the  readers  of  even 
such  high-class  journals  as  the  Kdlnische  or  Frankfurter 
Zeitung  or  the  Berliner  Tagehlatt  are  often  uninformed 
as  to  the  real  condition  of  public  affairs  and  public 
feehng  in  France,  England  and  America.  The  result 
has  been  that  each  succeeding  international  crisis  has 
found  the  German  reading  pubhc  hving  in  a  fool's 
paradise  of  misinformation  with  regard  to  the  mighty 
forces  of  public  sentiment  which  sway  cabinet  decisions 
in  London,  Paris,  Washington  and  to  some  extent 
Rome.  Some  of  the  greater  German  dailies,  hke  the 
Kdlnische,  have  spent  vast  sums  in  sending  experts  to 
spy  out  the  highlands  of  Thibet  or  the  savage  stretches 
of  the  upper  Congo  and  spread  before  their  readers  a 


364    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

wealth  of  information  regarding  the  economic  possi- 
bihties  of  southern  Brazil  or  the  valleys  of  Mesopotamia 
or  the  fauna  and  flora  of  the  strangest  islands  of  the 
southern  seas.  Of  everything  that  has  a  scientific  in- 
terest they  render  account  with  characteristic  German 
enthusiasm  for  truth  :  in  political  matters  their  informa- 
tion is  usually  neither  complete  nor  accurate  and  their 
correspondence  from  neighboring  French  and  Italian 
cities  or  even  from  Alsace  or  the  Prussian  East  is  often 
but  valorous  vaporing  of  the  tap-room  sort. 

The  weakness  of  the  German  papers  as  international 
newsgatherers  is  partly  to  be  explained  through  the 
personnel  of  the  German  newspaper  ofiice.  This  sel- 
dom has  at  its  command  men  of  the  standing  of  those 
who  represent  the  great  London  papers  in  foreign  capitals, 
a  lack  that  is  directly  traceable  to  the  inferior  standing 
of  the  journahst  in  Germany  as  compared  with  Western 
lands.  In  the  Fatherland,  as  elsewhere,  the  newspaper 
man  does  not  as  a  rule  freely  elect  the  profession  which 
he  practises,  but  gravitates  into  it  as  a  result  of  circum- 
stances. Here,  however,  the  result  is  worse  than  else- 
where, not  only  for  the  training  of  the  journaUst,  but 
for  the  social  status  of  the  profession.  In  this  land  of 
specialization  every  aspirant  for  a  professional  career 
selects  or  is  supposed  to  select,  or  have  his  parents  select 
for  him,  his  Hfe  career  before  he  goes  to  the  university, 
and  he  is  expected  to  follow  it  up  with  all  his  force  and 
enthusiasm  from  that  time  forth  forevermore.  Few, 
very  few,  select  journalism,  for  while  the  financial  re- 
wards of  the  successful  journalist  are  not  inconsiderable, 
the  social  prestige  belonging  to  the  profession  is  still  al- 
most as  lacking  and  the  professional  pride  among  journal- 
ists as  undeveloped  as  half  a  century  ago,  when  Gustav 
Freytag  wrote  his  charming  comedy  Die  Joiirnalisten  to 
prove   that    German   editors   could   be  men  of  honor. 

The  editorial  chairs  of  Germ.any  contain  some  brilliant 
men,  who,  feehng  an  inner   call   to   journalism,   have 


THE  PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  365 

deserted  the  teacher's  chair  or  even  the  lawyer's  desk 
or  surgeon's  case.  Besides  these  and  others,  whose  lives 
have  been  given  to  a  special  training  for  the  periodical 
press,  there  are  a  very  great  number  who  have  found 
their  way  into  the  newspaper  ofl6ce  simply  because 
they  have  failed  as  lawyers  or  as  teachers  or  in  some 
other  calling  where  success  means  official  position. 
Hard-and-fast  conditions  of  society  in  Germany  admit 
a  fall  in  the  social  scale,  but  seldom  a  rise.  There  is 
no  such  thing  as  working  for  a  while  in  a  minor  or  menial 
position  and  then  entering  one  of  the  learned  profes- 
sions :  the  educational  system  forbids  it.  The  dark 
side  of  German  efficiency  is  that  those  who  have  through 
temperament  or  other  causes  made  a  failure  in  the  pro- 
fession for  which  they  have  prepared,  have  thereafter 
small  chance  of  success  in  any  calling  of  equal  social 
rank  or  even  in  the  close  in-fighting  of  business  competi- 
tion. To  a  good  many  such  journalism  offers  the  only 
field  where  they  can  still  hope  for  a  remunerative  ac- 
tivity mthout  entire  loss  of  social  position. 

In  addition  to  the  lack  of  preparation  for  their  profes- 
sion under  which  so  many  German  newspaper  men 
suffer,  they  are  not  permitted,  as  in  France,  to  sign 
their  articles.  Not  a  few  leading  articles  and  summaries 
are  signed  by  the  chief  editor ;  but  as  a  rule  the  German 
newspaper  man  is  hidden  behind  the  same  impenetrable 
veil  of  anon>Tnity  that  shrouds  his  colleagues  in  Eng- 
land and  America.  His  work,  be  it  ever  so  faithfully 
done,  brings  him  no  personal  advertisement.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  lack  of  liberal  institutions  condemns  the 
editor  to  something  like  political  impotence;  and  ex- 
cept among  the  Social  Democrats,  where  newspaper 
editors  are  frequently  elected  to  legislative  office,  he 
rarely  gets  anything  in  the  way  of  political  reward. 
The  positions  in  the  consular  and  even  the  diplomatic 
ser\dce  that  now  and  then  recompense  the  American 
editor  for  faithful  service  to  the  party  cause  and  the 


366    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

titles  and  distinctions  which  successful  British  journal- 
ists receive  have  no  counterpart  in  Germany.  With 
the  exception  of  the  two  groups  with  the  best  developed 
political  sense,  the  Conservatives  and  the  Social  Demo- 
crats, the  journaHst  plays  but  a  small  part  in  the  active 
life  of  the  party  and  is  practically  never  rewarded  by 
the  gift  of  political  office.  The  effect  of  this  upon 
the  ambition  of  newspaper  men  can  well  be  imagined. 
Thus  cut  off  from  adequate  preparation,  shut  in  behind 
a  paralyzing  anonymity,  inehgible  for  political  rewards, 
the  German  journalist  cannot,  save  in  the  case  of  a  few 
great  papers,  lay  claim  to  an  enviable  social  or  poUtical 
position.  As  a  rule  he  does  his  duty  faithfully  within 
the  limits  allowed  him  by  the  laws  and  by  the  business 
considerations  of  his  office. 

These  considerations  play  a  no  more  important  part 
in  Germany  than  in  more  democratic  lands,  where  the 
cashier's  office  is  too  often  permitted  to  dominate  the 
editorial  rooms.  Absolute  independence  of  the  adver- 
tising columns  and  similar  considerations  is  an  ideal 
rather  than  a  fact  in  every  part  of  the  newspaper  world, 
though  here  the  German  publisher  may  be  said  to  be 
less  exposed  to  temptation  because  of  the  rigid  laws 
which  govern  business  competition  and  because  by 
education  the  German  is  opposed  to  unfair  play  in 
business  life.  The  treatment  of  the  editor  as  a  hireling 
who  must  echo  the  policy  of  the  pubhsher  and  guard  the 
latter's  political  and  financial  interests  is  a  sacrifice 
which  the  editorial  profession  makes  everywhere  to  the 
capitaHstic  organization  of  society,  and  it  is  no  more 
common  in  Germany  than  abroad,  although  it  must^  be 
said  that  anything  that  in  any  way  diminishes  the  im- 
portance and  standing  of  the  press  as  a  tribune  of  the 
people  must  increase  the  temptation  of  publisher  and 
editor  to  sell  their  influence  to  the  highest  bidder. 

The  dignity  of  the  press  is  then  directly  dependent 
upon  the  liberty  allowed  it,  and  this  hberty  in  turn 


THE   PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  367 

upon  the  habit  of  free  institutions.  It  follows  that 
those  statesmen  who  have  shown  themselves  most 
hostile  to  these  institutions  have  in  the  history  of  pres- 
ent-day Germany  done  the  most  to  prostitute  the  press. 
Bismarck,  according  to  his  press  secretary,  Moritz 
Busch,  frequently  expressed  himself  with  cynical  con- 
tempt on  the  subject  of  the  honesty  of  the  German 
press  and  its  value  as  a  representative  of  the  people. 
"German  papers,"  he  declared  in  1876,  "are  bound 
to  be  amusing  reading,  for  they  are  meant  to  be  glanced 
over  while  drinking  a  mug  of  beer  and  to  furnish  topics 
of  lively  conversation,  usually  about  something  which 
has  taken  place  a  long  way  off  in  foreign  parts."  The 
Iron  Chancellor,  however,  himself  made  constant  use 
of  the  newspapers  to  influence  public  opinion  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  maintaining  at  the  foreign  office,  in 
addition  to  the  official  literary  bureau,  a  private  bureau 
under  the  adroit  management  first  of  Busch  and  later 
of  Professor  Aegidi.  Through  these  men  he  played 
upon  public  opinion  by  means  of  articles  inspired  by 
himself  and  often  prepared  under  his  dictation,  which 
were  published  not  only  in  the  semi-official  Nord- 
deutsche  Zeilung,  the  Kolnische  Zeitung  or  the  Kretiz- 
zeitung,  but  in  papers  issued  in  remote  cities  of  the 
provinces,  whose  connection  with  the  government 
would  not  be  guessed.  Sometimes  under  the  direction 
of  their  wily  chief  his  lieutenants  would  put  the  Chan- 
cellor's ideas  in  the  form  of  a  letter  from  a  German 
long  resident  in  Paris  or  a  Prussian  close  to  Vatican 
circles  in  Rome,  playing  upon  the  various  keys  and 
stops  of  prejudice  and  sentiment  as  the  national  or 
international  situation  demanded.  By  his  Press  Or- 
dinances of  1863  Bismarck  had  shown  himself  quite 
willing  to  throttle  a  free  press,  later  on  he  assured 
himself  of  adequate  newspaper  support  by  means  of  a 
cleverness  and  an  insincerity  a  little  more  than  diplo- 
matic.    That  these  means  were  at  times  highly  immoral, 


368    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

no  one  who  reads  Busch's  biography  of  the  Chancellor 
can  deny.  From  the  income  of  the  sequestrated  prop- 
erty of  the  King  of  Hanover  and  the  Landgrave  of 
Hesse,  who  had  been  deposed  on  the  annexation  of 
these  countries  by  Prussia  in  1866,  the  Chancellor 
drew  the  so-called  ''reptile  funds,"  by  which  the  im- 
perial government  maintained  an  influence  over  the 
press  which  extended  into  the  remotest  corners  of  Ger- 
many and  made  itself  felt  in  London,  Paris  and  Rome. 

All  of  this  was  justified  by  Bismarck  and  his  apologists 
as  a  measure  of  war.  It  is  certain  that  the  Iron  Chan- 
cellor had  to  face  all  of  his  Kfe  the  bitterest  opposition 
on  the  part  of  a  few  independent  newspapers,  the  most 
relentless  from  the  Kreuzzeitung,  which  under  its  brill- 
iant editor  Hammerstein  forced  the  fighting  in  the 
most  violent  manner  whenever  Bismarck  showed  the 
slightest  inclination  toward  liberal  ideas.  Confronted 
by  bitter  enemies  not  only  in  the  Liberal  and  Clerical 
ranks  but  among  his  own  class,  the  conservative  aris- 
tocracy, as  well,  Bismarck  did  not  hesitate  to  assure 
himself  of  press  support  by  means  which  were  sometimes, 
as  has  been  pointed  out,  of  doubtful  morality.  He 
believed  that  his  enemies  were  poisoning  the  wells  of 
pubhc  opinion;  he  himself  disdained  no  weapons  of 
deceit  and  bribery  in  his  newspaper  campaigns,  furnish- 
ing false  information  to  draw  the  fire  of  his  opponents, 
or  introducing  misleading  articles  into  the  trusted  organs 
of  the  opposition.  The  success  of  this  policy  for  the 
Chancellor's  aims  cannot  be  denied;  its  final  result 
was  to  weaken  for  decades  the  political  influence  of  the 
German  press  at  home  and  abroad. 

Bismarck's  successors  in  the  home  and  foreign  ofi&ces 
inherited  something  of  his  cynical  contempt  for  the 
press  without  the  great  Chancellor's  skill  in  using  it 
for  his  purposes.  Indeed  the  attitude  of  the  govern- 
ment officials  in  Germany  toward  the  representatives 
of  the  fourth  estate  has  been  one  of  arrogance,  not  im- 


THE  PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  369 

mixed  with  fear.  Often  the  feeling  seems  to  be  that 
the  press  represents  an  improper  curiosity  on  the  part 
of  the  masses  about  government  doings,  a  curiosity 
which  must  be  checked  if  possible,  and  if  that  is  not 
possible,  satisfied  with  such  meagre  news  as  the  govern- 
ment may  find  fit  for  popular  consumption.  The  re- 
sult is,  that  the  same  feeling  is  cultivated  in  the  German 
newspapers  that  one  finds  often  among  German  citizens 
toward  public  affairs :  they  have  been  told  so  often 
that  the  governing  classes  can  manage  things  without 
their  help  that  they  have  grown  to  believe  it,  and  the 
press  thus  frequently  accepts  without  hesitation  govern- 
ment leadership  and  voluntarily  resigns  its  rights  as  a 
tribune  of  the  people.  Two  instances  will  illustrate 
this,  both  taken  from  the  exciting  days  at  the  end  of 
July,  1 9 14,  just  before  Germany  declared  war  against 
Russia.  On  July  30  the  air  was  full  of  rumors  and  the 
Berhn  Lokalanzeiger  pubhshed  an  extra  announcing 
that  war  had  been  declared  against  Russia.  This  was 
followed  immediately  by  a  governmental  denial  and  a 
disavowal  and  the  withdrawal  of  its  issue  by  the  offend- 
ing paper.  The  premature  news  reached  Munich, 
where  it  was  pubhshed  in  various  extra  issues  and 
caused  the  greatest  excitement.  At  the  height  of  this 
the  newspapers,  which  were  unable  to  communicate 
with  Berlin  on  account  of  the  overloading  of  the  wires, 
applied  to  the  Bavarian  government  to  know  the  truth 
of  the  situation.  For  hours  they  were  kept  waiting, 
and  finally  with  the  greatest  reluctance  the  Bavarian 
oflScials  gave  the  information  that  they  had  not  been 
advised  of  a  declaration  of  war,  which  as  a  matter  of 
fact  did  not  take  place  till  two  days  later.  As  show- 
ing how  dependence  on  the  government  has  become  a 
matter  of  habit  in  crises,  on  the  same  day  on  which 
the  press  representatives  were  treated  so  supercihously 
by  the  Bavarian  government  when  making  inquiries 
regarding  a  matter  of  the  highest  pubhc  concern,  the 


370    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

Munich  Zeitung,  a  Radical  paper,  called  urgently  upon 
the  imperial  officials,  in  view  of  the  disturbed  state  of 
the  public  mind,  to  "take  charge  of  public  opinion!" 

As  a  rule  the  papers  have  no  right  to  find  fault  with 
the  government  for  not  attempting  to  mould  public 
opinion.  Since  Bismarck's  day,  however,  with  the 
growth  of  healthfulness  in  German  political  life,  minis- 
terial efforts  to  control  the  public  view  have  become 
less  insidious,  although  they  are  not  yet  always  sincere 
and  devoid  of  trickery.  At  the  present  time  govern- 
mental influence  finds  its  way  to  the  public  mind  through 
papers  which  are  directly  "official"  and  papers  whose 
utterances  are  known  as  "semi-official"  and  also  by 
means  of  articles  in  journals  where  government  in- 
fluences are  least  suspected.  The  directly  and  openly 
"official"  papers,  such  as  the  Reichsanzeiger  and  the 
organs  of  the  army  and  navy  and  the  various  Anzeiger 
to  be  found  in  the  Prussian  provincial  capitals  and  the 
capitals  of  the  other  German  states,  are  merely  organs 
of  governmental  announcement,  and  have  no  more  in- 
fluence on  public  opinion  than  departmental  announce- 
ments in  Washington.  Aside  from  these  organs  of 
the  imperial  and  state  governments,  the  various  depart- 
ments of  the  federal  government  contain  officials  whose 
duty  it  is  to  furnish  information  to  the  press,  the  most 
important  bureau  of  that  kind  being  found  in  the  Foreign 
Office.  The  organization  of  these  bureaus  is  as  efficient 
as  the  German  bureaucracy  always  is,  and  their  work 
includes  not  only  the  furnishing  of  information  to  the 
press,  but  the  preparation  of  editorial  leaders  and  all 
sorts  of  articles  intended  to  work  upon  public  senti- 
ment, which  find  publication  in  some  of  the  "semi- 
official" papers. 

As  has  been  noted,  the  most  important  agency  for 
disseminating  news  throughout  Germany  is  Wolff's 
Telegraphic  Bureau,  an  institution  which  may  be 
called  a  governmentally  owned  press  association.     It 


THE   PRESS  AND   PUBLIC   OPINION  371 

antedates  the  foundation  of  the  new  German  empire, 
having  been  organized  in  1865  as  a  joint  stock  company, 
with  the  Prussian  government  in  control  of  a  majority 
of  the  stock.  Like  Renter's  Bureau,  the  Agence  Havas 
and  other  national  news  agencies,  the  Wolff  Bureau 
claims  an  international  character.  It  maintains  cor- 
respondents in  foreign  capitals  and  has  in  peace  times 
affiliations  with  other  great  news  agencies.  It  prac- 
tically controls  the  news  field  in  Germany,  although  its 
known  governmental  character  causes  German  readers 
to  discount  its  despatches  to  some  extent,  less  because 
there  is  any  possibility  of  Wolff's  Bureau  falsifying  the 
actual  facts  furnished  from  the  world  outside  of  Germany 
than  from  the  feeling  that  other  facts  may  be  suppressed. 
To  the  American  in  Germany  the  tone  of  the  Wolff 
messages,  when  they  concern  royalty,  smacks  not  a 
little  of  unctuous  servihty.  Good  or  bad,  it  forms  the 
first  means  by  which  the  German  reader  learns  his  for- 
eign news:  that  it  has  not  developed  further  in  past 
years  as  a  real  newsgatherer  is  due  less  to  governmental 
control  than  to  the  traditional  lack  of  interest  among 
Germans  in  international  affairs. 

Next  to  Wolff's  Bureau  come  the  information  bureaus 
of  the  government  offices,  referred  to  above,  and  that 
brings  up  the  question  of  "  semi-ofl&cial "  papers.  Just 
which  papers  deserve  this  title  is  hard  to  say,  the  Ger- 
man press  itself  being  often  in  the  dark  as  to  how  far 
government  influence  extends  over  certain  papers. 
Universally  recognized  as  the  government  mouth- 
piece is  the  Norddeutsche  Allgemeine  Zeitung  of  Berlin, 
which  has  been  in  the  service  of  the  Prussian  and  the 
imperial  government  since  the  sixties.  Bismarck  used 
it  from  the  early  days  of  his  chancellorship,  and  since 
that  time  it  has  published  the  government's  views, 
particularly  on  foreign  affairs,  prepared  in  the  govern- 
ment offices  and  under  the  direction  of  the  imperial 
chancellor   and   occasionally   of   the   emperor   himself. 


372    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

The  statements  of  the  rather  old-fashioned  Nord- 
deutsche  are  recognized  as  having  the  highest  authority. 
At  the  other  end  of  the  scale  stands  the  rural  daily  which 
champions  the  government  program  and  especially  at 
election  time  rages  against  the  Social  Democrats  with 
eager  zeal  in  return  for  the  local  government  advertising 
given  by  the  all-powerful  local  administrator,  the 
Landrat.  Between  the  two  there  extends  a  whole 
line  of  papers,  whose  articles  are  regularly  or  occasion- 
ally inspired  by  the  federal  or  state  officials.  Certain 
journals,  like  the  Kdlnische  Zeitung,  the  Tdgliche 
Rundschau  of  Berlin  and  the  Hannoverische  Courier, 
have  been  regularly  used  to  express  government  opinion 
on  domestic  or  foreign  afifairs,  the  actual  subject-matter 
or  the  general  ideas  being  furnished  from  the  Home 
or  Foreign  Office.  Frequently  the  reading  public  is 
hard  put  to  it  to  know  whether  articles  in  these  papers 
represent  the  ideas  of  the  government  or  not,  for  even 
the  staid  Norddeutsche  occasionally  kicks  over  the  traces 
and  treats  the  topics  of  the  day  in  a  manner  which  is 
quite  opposed  to  all  theories  of  feudal-conservative  ad- 
ministration. In  proportion,  however,  as  the  news 
matter  concerns  the  person  or  entourage  of  the  Emperor 
or  one  of  the  rulers  of  the  major  states  or  a  foreign 
crisis  the  articles  in  the  papers  in  question  are  apt  to 
reflect  the  feeling  in  government  circles,  for  the  value 
of  the  proper  public  treatment  of  such  subjects  is  well 
understood  by  the  governing  class.  The  public  and 
semi-pubHc  utterances  of  the  Emperor  are  regularly 
reported  by  an  official  stenographer  and  carefully  edited 
by  the  Foreign  Office  before  pubhcation. 

"One  cannot  carry  on  international  politics  without 
a  press."  This  statement  of  the  late  Marschall  von 
Bieberstein,  formerly  German  foreign  minister,  is  un- 
doubtedly confirmed  by  the  practice  of  every  civilized 
land.  But  there  is  considerable  difference  between  the 
information  furnished   the  national  press  in  London, 


THE  PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  373 

Paris  and  Washington  and  the  press  articles  which  find 
their  way  into  the  German  "semi-official"  papers,  a 
difference  pecuhar  to  the  German  government.  In  the 
more  democratic  countries  the  press  is  taken  sufficiently 
into  the  government's  confidence  as  to  facts  to  enable 
it  to  fulfil  its  mission  as  the  mouthpiece  of  the  nation. 
In  Germany  the  imperial  and  Prussian  government  by 
the  use  of  its  system  of  anonymous  inspiration  has  been 
accustomed  to  play  upon  the  various  organs  in  which 
the  government's  views  are  wont  to  appear  so  as  to 
control  public  opinion,  fanning  or  restraining  the  fires 
of  national  enthusiasm  as  the  foreign  situation  demands. 
This  was  illustrated  in  the  careful  management  of  the 
press  in  the  Morocco  crisis  of  191 1,  when  the  anti- 
French  and  anti-British  feeling  was  alternately  stimu- 
lated and  checked ;  incontestibly  also  in  the  days 
preceding  the  outbreak  of  war  in  1914,  when  a  series 
of  "hands  off!"  articles  following  Austria's  ultimatum 
to  Serbia  was  well  adapted  to  steel  and  inspire  the 
national  spirit  for  the  approaching  crisis. 

Occasionally,  however,  public  opinion  in  Germany 
gets  very  much  out  of  hand.  This  was  the  case  during 
the  Boer  War,  when  the  waves  of  enthusiasm  for  the 
South  African  republics  rolled  high  in  spite  of  all  eft'orts 
of  the  governmentally  inspired  press  to  pour  oil  upon 
them,  and  in  1906  when  through  the  Kaiser's  interview 
with  the  Daily  Telegraph  correspondent  the  last  phases 
of  the  pro-British  attitude  of  the  imperial  government 
at  the  time  of  the  struggle  with  the  Boers  were  laid 
bare.  On  such  occasions  as  this,  when  German  ideals 
are  strongly  touched,  the  press  arrays  itself  with  force 
and  remarkable  unanimity  on  the  popular  side  and 
leads  an  outbreak  of  Teutonic  fury  that  echoes  in 
every  home  and  hall  of  the  Fatherland.  Such  unanimity 
is,  however,  rare.  Some  of  the  strongest  papers  are 
handicapped  in  their  influence  on  public  opinion  by  the 
suspicion  of  government  inspiration.     All  tend  to  suffer, 


374    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

so  far  as  they  are  not  the  mouthpieces  of  the  Foreign 
Office,  from  a  lack  of  a  feeling  of  responsibility,  passing 
in  their  leading  articles  from  an  unmotivated  exultation 
over  Germany's  present  and  future  situation  to  an 
equally  unfounded  despair. 

Much  more  than  in  foreign  matters  has  the  system 
of  governmental  influence  been  harmful  to  the  German 
press  in  matters  of  domestic  policy.  While  the  ministry 
no  longer  poisons  the  wells  of  public  opinion  as  in  Bis- 
marck's day,  it  does  greatly  impair  the  influence  of  a 
great  section  of  the  press.  During  crises  like  that 
before  the  Reichstag  election  of  1907  or  the  discussions 
preceding  the  passage  of  the  Defense  Bill  in  19 13,  the 
imperial  ministry  constantly  played  upon  the  keys  and 
stops  of  the  press.  Here,  however,  there  has  grown 
up  in  the  great  National  Liberal  and  Radical  papers, 
not  to  speak  of  the  vast  network  of  Socialist  organs, 
led  by  the  Berlin  Vorwarts,  an  array  of  popular  tribunes, 
who  guard  jealously  the  interests  of  the  economic  groups 
which  they  represent  and  are  themselves  free  from  all 
suspicion  of  unfair  government  influence. 

Almost  all  of  the  great  papers  of  Germany  are  in  fact 
strict  party  organs,  only  a  few  hke  the  Lokalanzeiger  of 
Berlin  professing  to  be  impartial  in  matters  political. 
Political  interests  have,  as  we  have  seen,  combined  with 
economic  interests  in  Germany,  so  that  journals  repre- 
sent not  merely  a  party,  but  an  economic  group  as  well. 
Thus  the  Kreuzzeitung,  the  old  organ  of  the  Conserva- 
tive party,  is  likewise  the  most  influential  representa- 
tive of  agrarian  interests,  while  Radical  organs  like  the 
Frankfurter  Zeitung  have  their  constituency  among  the 
financial  and  commercial  classes  of  the  cities  and  the 
great  National  Liberal  papers,  like  the  Kolnische 
Zeitung,  the  Tagliche  Rundschau  of  Berlin  and  the 
Hamburger  Nachrichten,  represent  the  industrial  in- 
terests and  those  of  the  upper  middle  class.  It  is  but 
natural   that   those   political   parties  which   are  most 


! 


THE  PRESS   AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  375 

closely  identified  with  economic  groups  should  be  rep- 
resented by  the  most  aggressive  press.  Thus  the  two 
groups  which  occupy  opposite  ends  of  the  poHtical  scale, 
the  Conservatives  and  the  Sociahsts,  whose  organizations 
rest  on  a  strong  community  of  economic  interest,  have 
an  aggressive  and  well-discipHned  press ;  and  as  a  result 
it  is  chiefly  among  the  Conservative  and  Sociahst  editors 
that  one  finds  men  of  strong  personal  influence  on  the 
counsels  of  the  party.  Next  to  them  comes  the  press 
of  the  Centre  party,  led  by  the  powerful  Germania  in 
BerHn,  a  journal  which  was  founded  in  1870  with  the 
first  leap  into  power  of  the  ultramontane  party  and  which 
has  vaUantly  led  the  firing  fine  in  defense  of  Roman 
Catholic  interests  ever  since.  Between  these  extremes 
stands  a  long  line  of  papers  with  hberal  and  radical 
leanings.  It  is  remarkable  indeed  that  by  far  the 
greater  number  of  journals  of  national  and  international 
standing  in  Germany  are  National  Liberal  in  faith  or 
tendency,  just  as  this  party,  with  all  of  its  trimming 
and  irresolution  in  program,  contains  a  vastly  greater 
proportion  of  the  brains  of  the  empire  than  its  electoral 
figures  would  lead  one  to  suppose.  Papers  Hke  the 
Kolnische  Zeitung,  the  Miinchner  Neueste  Nachrichten, 
the  Sckwdbische  Merkiir  of  Stuttgart,  the  Hannoverische 
Courier  or  the  Tdgliche  Rundschau  of  Berlin,  with  their 
Radical  contemporaries,  the  Berliner  Tageblatt,  the 
Vossische  Zeitung  of  Berlin  and  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung, 
represent  the  very  best  that  German  journaHsm  has  to 
offer,  both  as  newsgatherers  and  in  the  national-patriotic 
tone  of  their  policies.  In  Germany  as  elsewhere  the 
more  narrow  the  poHtical  attitude  of  a  paper,  the  less 
its  importance  as  a  gatherer  of  news. 

Every  political,  social  and  economic  direction  then 
has  its  own  press,  which  watches  jealously  over  the 
interests  of  its  group  and  presents  them  with  more  or 
less  passion  and  narrowness.  From  the  wild  chauvinism 
of  the  Berlin  Deutsche  Tageszeitung  or  Post  to  the  bitter 


376    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

class  appeals  of  the  Socialistic  Vorwarts,  each  strikes 
its  own  peculiar  note  and  plays  the  pipe  for  its  party's 
dancing.  It  seldom  happens  indeed  that  a  newspaper 
ties  itself  completely  to  the  fortunes  of  a  political  leader, 
as  in  France,  nevertheless  the  party  press  reflects  in 
striking  fashion  the  individualism  and  separatism  of 
German  poHtics  as  well  as  the  pettiness  and  narrowness 
which  is  a  part  of  factional  strife.  The  fulminations 
of  the  agrarian  aristocrat  against  the  inheritance  tax, 
those  of  the  manufacturer  against  the  income  tax  or  the 
radical  against  the  tariff  on  food-stuffs  and  the  appeals 
of  the  Social  Democrat  to  class  feeling  echo  and  re- 
echo harshly  and  shrilly  according  as  the  acoustic  space 
furnished  by  the  individual  sheet  is  large  or  small. 

The  German,  whether  country  squire,  townsman  or 
peasant-farmer,  demands  that  the  paper  which  he 
reads  beside  the  family  lamp  or  the  restaurant  table 
shall  support  first  of  all  Germany's  claims  abroad  and 
secondly,  the  program  of  his  particular  party,  with 
loyalty,  which  is  the  trait  which  he  most  reveres.  In 
no  country  is  a  newspaper  more  clearly  tagged  with 
its  party  name,  and  in  no  country  does  the  reader  insist 
more  strongly  that  it  shall  remain  true  to  its  colors. 
Through  thick  and  thin,  right  or  wrong,  in  disaster  or 
success,  the  paper  must  be  the  defender,  apologist 
and  conserver  of  the  party's  traditions.  Every  act  of 
the  party's  leaders  must  be  championed,  every  move  of 
the  party's  opponents  must  be  attacked  or  given  an 
unflattering  interpretation.  Characteristic  of  this  is 
the  attitude  of  the  papers  in  reporting  poKtical  debates. 
"I  always  took  care  that  the  Whig  dogs  should  not  get 
the  best  of  it,"  said  Dr.  Johnson  in  speakiag  of  his 
parliamentary  reporting,  and  something  like  this  has 
become  the  motto  of  the  German  press.  Even  journals 
of  the  highest  standing  almost  always  have  their  party's 
representative  emerge  from  a  political  discussion  covered 
with  honor  "for  his  clear  and  practical  demonstration 


THE  PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  377 

of  the  facts,"  while  his  opponent  invariably  "seeks  to 
confuse  the  matter  and  takes  refuge  in  excuses  and 
hedging." 

The  result  of  this  attitude  on  public  opinion  is  still 
further  to  narrow  and  to  embitter  political  life.  The 
unfortunate  side  of  this  hfe,  already  pointed  out,  is  that 
it  sphts  the  nation  into  factions  and  creates  among  these 
factions  the  feeling  that  the  government  is  a  hostile 
force  with  which  in  various  crises  the  best  terms  possible 
are  to  be  made.  The  result  is  that  the  German  citizen 
gets  very  little  help  from  the  press  in  laying  aside  the 
swaddling  clothes  of  political  separatism.  He  swears 
by  his  Frankfurter  or  Magdehurger  or  Kblnische  and 
avoids  other  papers  Uke  the  pest.  This  attitude  toward 
the  newspapers  is  characteristic  of  the  narrow  partisan 
in  every  country.  An  especially  unfortunate  result 
in  Germany,  however,  is  the  weakening  of  Hberalism 
through  the  dissipation  of  its  energies  in  factional 
controversies.  Radical  and  National  Liberal  papers 
have  found  it  as  impossible  to  make  common  cause 
against  feudal  pressure  and  agrarian  demands  in  the 
press  as  in  parhament,  and  the  Social  Democratic  papers 
attack  the  middle-class  Berhn  TageUatt  as  fiercely  as 
they  do  the  feudal  Kreuzzeitung. 

Unfortunately  then  pohtical  factionalism  and  blind 
subserviency  to  the  party  program  harm  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  press  and  damage  its  influence  as  an 
organizer  of  pubKc  opinion.  On  the  other  hand  it 
seems  that  the  sources  of  public  opinion  are  kept  purer 
from  strictly  financial  and  business  contamination  in 
Germany  than  elsewhere.  Such  bribery  as  there  is,  is 
usually  backed  in  some  way  by  government  influence, 
which  dominates  many  a  petty  provincial  or  rural  sheet. 
In  the  various  "districts"  and  "circles"  into  which 
Prussia  is  divided  some  one  of  the  local  newspapers 
enjoys  the  official  advertising  and  is  regarded  as  the 
governmental  mouthpiece.     This  provincial  sheet,  which 


378     THE   GERMAN   EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

assumes  the  proud  title  of  "Official  Gazette"  (Amts- 
und  Kreisblatt) ,  is  a  private  undertaking,  of  course,  but 
is  strongly  under  the  influence  of  the  local  crown  official, 
the  Landrat,  who  has  the  privilege  of  withdrawing  at 
any  time  the  official  titles  and  official  advertising. 
Naturally  the  paper  is  expected  to  support  the  govern- 
ment, and  particularly  the  poHcies  of  the  Conservative 
party,  with  all  vigor,  and  the  Landrat  sees  to  it  that 
it  goes  for  the  Social  Democrats  without  gloves  and 
he  permits  nothing  to  pass  uncensured  that  might  be 
construed  as  a  reflection  on  the  ruler  or  the  monarchy. 
During  electoral  campaigns  the  editor  of  such  a  paper 
must  do  his  utmost  to  prevent  any  increase  in  the 
Radical  or  the  SociaHst  vote  in  his  district,  if  he  would 
avoid  a  vigorous  bullying  from  the  all-powerful  Landrat, 
who  is  nearly  always  a  member  of  the  feudal  class. 

Aside  from  such  instances  of  official  terrorism,  it  is 
not  usual  to  find  German  journals  listening  to  financial 
seduction.  Certain  papers,  it  is  true,  represent  par- 
ticular business  interests,  as  the  Rheinwestfdlische 
Zeitung  of  Diisseldorf  those  of  the  Westphalian  mine 
operators  and  iron  and  steel  manufacturers.  The  big 
business  interests,  indeed,  have  their  own  press,  which 
is  in  great  measure  independent  of  party,  although 
supporting  of  course  Conservative  or  National  Liberal 
pohcies.  Thus  the  Krupps  and  iron  and  steel  interests 
are  said  to  own  the  BerUn  Neueste  Nachrichtcn,  which 
represents  most  adequately  those  industries  and  the 
financiers  behind  them,  while  individuals  identified 
with  the  Agrarian  League  own  the  BerHn  Tageszeitung. 
It  is,  however,  extremely  rare  when  a  newspaper  modi- 
fies its  understood  political  poHcy  as  a  result  of  financial 
considerations.  Especially  in  the  case  of  the  Social 
Democratic  press  is  the  influence  of  the  advertising 
columns  on  the  papers'  policy  negligible. 

Of  all  the  influences  then  which  work  upon  the  press, 
the  government  through  its  various  open  and  subter- 


THE   PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  379 

ranean  agencies  is  far  and  away  the  strongest.  Even 
in  peace  times  the  Berhn  ministry  may  hold  a  heavy 
hand  on  public  information  through  its  control  of  the 
only  great  news  agency,  Wolff's  Bureau,  to  which  every 
German  paper  is  in  a  sense  tributary,  from  the  metro- 
politan journal  with  its  four  editions  daily  to  the  "patent 
outside"  of  the  East  Prussian  or  Bavarian  village. 
The  result  is  a  marked  lack  of  enterprise  in  seeking  news 
on  the  part  of  the  individual  journals,  greatly  in  contrast 
with  the  papers  of  western  Europe  and  America.  To 
begin  with,  in  the  very  arrangement  of  the  greater 
number  of  German  papers  the  news  plays  a  much  less 
important  part  than  the  editorial  and  essay,  for  the 
telegraphic  news  is  usually  relegated  to  the  inside  pages, 
the  first  page  being  given  over  to  discursive  articles, 
which  in  the  greater  journals  may  concern  the  most 
recent  news,  but  in  the  smaller  papers  usually  limp 
twenty-four  hours  behind  it.  More  often  the  first 
columns  in  the  morning  or  evening  editions  are  devoted 
to  an  essay  on  some  political  or  sociological  subject 
or  to  a  resume,  such  as  would  be  found  in  the  Sunday 
issue  of  an  American  paper.  Even  some  of  the  best 
German  newspapers  put  the  latest  news  in  the  last 
columns  of  the  inside  of  the  last  page,  the  place  which 
seems  to  foreign  readers  the  least  conspicuous  in  the 
whole  paper.  News  is  indeed  furnished  with  startHng 
frequency  by  the  greater  German  papers,  such  journals 
as  the  Kolnische  Zeitung  putting  out  four  editions  daily, 
with  a  speciahzation  that  is  characteristic  of  other  sides 
of  German  industry,  one  edition  containing  general 
news,  another  especially  market  reports,  etc.  The 
wealth  of  material  which  such  a  daily  offers,  including 
social  and  poUtical  philosophy,  fiction,  poetry,  travel, 
biography  and  Hterary  criticism,  much  of  it  of  consider- 
able scientific  and  literary  value,  is  confusing  to  the 
American,  who  seeks  first  of  all  the  news  in  his  daily 
paper. 


380    THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

There  are  other  confusing  sides  in  the  German  attitude 
towards  the  day's  news  when  approached  with  British 
or  American  prejudices.  One  of  the  most  striking  is 
the  habit  of  even  the  best  papers  of  interlarding  news 
despatches  with  editorial  comment.  Provincial  sheet 
and  metropolitan  daily  aUke  are  apt  to  introduce  tele- 
graphic news  which  is  favorable  to  the  cause  which 
they  represent  with  salvos  of  editorial  applause,  while 
unfavorable  items  are  emasculated  by  constant  inter- 
Knear  comments  signed  "D.R."  {Der  Redakteur,  the 
editor),  such  as,  ''We  doubt  that!"  ''Well,  we  shall 
wait  and  see !"  or  even  "This  is  an  open  falsehood !"  or 
"Such  a  campaign  of  lies!"  and  similar  remarks.  Or 
passages  of  crucial  importance  in  the  text  may  be  in- 
terrupted by  a  bracketed  row  of  question  marks  or 
points  of  exclamation.  This  confusing  mixture  of  edi- 
torial opinion  with  the  day's  news  is  not  countenanced 
by  some  prominent  pubhshers,  like  Louis  Ullstein,  the 
owner  of  the  BerKn  Morgenpost  and  other  publications, 
who  have  tried  to  make  head  against  it.  Like  most 
newspaper  sins,  this  is  also  to  be  laid  at  the  door  of  the 
reader,  for  it  must  be  said  that  the  German  reader 
likes  to  have  his  news  served  up  in  a  way  wltich  shall 
spice  the  attractiveness  of  welcome  announcements 
and  soften  the  bitterness  of  unwelcome  things.  The 
German,  it  must  never  be  forgotten,  embraces  a  cause 
with  his  whole  soul,  whether  it  be  the  cause  of  the 
whole  Fatherland,  or  that  of  his  economic  class  or 
poUtical  party,  or  even  his  side  in  the  teapot  tempest 
of  local  pohtics.  He  as  a  devoted  champion  and  good 
fighter,  but  also  a  hard  loser,  and  his  tendency  to  ro- 
manticism often  permits  him  to  revel  in  a  paradise  of 
dreams  even  when  the  enemy  is  at  the  gate.  This 
characteristic  of  the  great  body  of  Germans  is  not  of 
course  a  weakness  of  the  politically  trained  classes  nor 
of  those  aggressive  men  who  guided  Germany's  industry 
to  the  front.     But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 


THE  PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  381 

great  majority  of  German  citizens  are  just  emerging 
from  a  state  of  political  immaturity.  They  devote 
themselves  with  patient  conscientiousness  and  enthus- 
iasm to  the  daily  duties  of  home  and  family,  handiwork 
or  profession,  and  leave  pohtical  leadership  to  those 
who  make  a  profession  of  ruling,  quite  wilhng  to  accept 
their  orders  so  long  as  their  patriotism  seems  trust- 
worthy. 

If  the  liking  for  news  flavored  with  the  sauce  of 
editorial  comment  indicates  a  weakness  in  German 
public  opinion,  the  distaste  for  a  directly  sensational 
treatment  of  news  is  a  strength.  Germany  has,  to  be 
sure,  its  political  press  of  a  sensational  sort.  The  wild 
chauvinism  of  some  of  the  Berlin  and  provincial  journals 
is  not  to  be  outdone  in  Paris  or  Petrograd ;  but  in  all 
that  does  not  concern  pohtics,  the  most  sensational  of 
German  journals  is  as  mild  when  compared  with  certain 
French  or  American  daihes  as  the  poems  of  Fehcia 
Hemans  with  the  early  effusions  of  Swinburne.  In  the 
whole  field  of  personalities  and  in  the  matter  of  crime 
especially,  the  German  papers  show  a  decency  and  re- 
serve all  the  more  refreshing  in  view  of  the  flood  of 
impure  books  which  has  risen  to  such  a  height  in  Ger- 
many. There  are,  to  be  sure,  yellow  journals  in  Berlin 
and  Munich,  and  especially  certain  comic  weekHes,  the 
clever  Simplicissimus  at  their  head,  show  a  coarseness 
of  tone  which  has  on  more  than  one  occasion  shut  them 
out  from  the  mails  in  those  countries  where  puritanism 
is  still  a  strong  tradition  ;  but  the  German  demands  that 
the  news  columns  of  his  daily  paper  shall  be  clean,  and 
the  law  backs  him  up  in  it.  For  here  as  elsewhere  in 
German  life,  the  correction  of  abuses  is  not  left  simply 
to  the  force  of  public  opinion.  Court  proceedings  must 
be  reported  in  such  a  way  that  they  cannot  possibly 
educate  to  crime ;  certain  classes  of  cases  are  entirely 
shut  out  of  the  papers,  and  it  may  be  said  in  general 
that  the  atmosphere  of  the  German  court  room  does 


382    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

not  lend  itself  to  yellow  journaKsm.  Offenders  against 
the  press  laws  are  invariably  punished,  often  with  a 
severity  which  seems  really  out  of  proportion  to  the 
offense. 

Especially  does  the  German  journalist  have  to  walk 
carefully  to  avoid  conflict  with  the  rigid  libel  laws. 
Even  the  most  innocent  remark  about  the  behavior  of 
some  public  servant  or  a  news  item  which  permits  of  a 
construction  placing  some  private  individual  in  an  un- 
flattering light  may  call  forth  a  demand  for  a  pubhc 
retraction  or  provoke  an  expensive  Hbel  suit.  The 
German  law,  indeed,  goes  very  far  in  protecting  the 
individual  in  all  the  rights  of  personality,  especially 
in  the  right  of  avoiding  publicity.  The  retractions 
published  from  time  to  time  in  German  papers  are  one 
of  the  most  enlightening  chapters  in  a  study  of  the 
German  press,  illustrating  as  they  do  how  fully  the 
rights  of  the  individual  are  guarded.  The  feeling  seems 
to  prevail  that  the  doings  of  no  person  or  group  of 
persons  shall  be  dragged  before  the  public  without  the 
consent  of  those  concerned.  It  goes  without  saying 
that  the  interviewer  plays  no  considerable  role  in  the 
German  newspaper  world,  and  that  the  position  of  the 
reporter  is  much  less  important  than  in  those  countries 
where  an  unrestricted  license  of  the  press  prevails. 
Indeed  the  German  law  goes  so  far  that  in  many  ways 
the  importance  of  the  press  as  a  sanitary  agent  is  taken 
away.  A  newspaper  is  sometimes  forced  by  threats  or 
legal  sentence  to  retract  a  statement  when  the  retraction 
is  practically  a  falsehood,  for  the  mere  fact  that  a  news 
item  is  true  does  not  by  any  means  serve  as  a  defense 
against  a  libel  suit,  if  the  item  may  be  construed  as  a 
reflection  on  the  behavior  of  any  person  oi-  group  of 
persons.  Thus  a  case  is  recorded  where  an  editor  was 
convicted  for  publishing  a  statement  reflecting  on  a 
hospital,  although  it  was  shown  in  the  court  proceedings 
that  the  statement  had  been  made  in  a  public  medical 


THE  PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  383 

gathering.  In  this  case  the  law  guaranteed  to  the 
physician  the  right  of  criticism,  but  denied  to  the  editor 
the  right  of  publicity. 

The  hbel  laws  are  the  constant  burden  of  editorial 
complaint  in  Gennany.  Especially  the  Social  Demo- 
cratic press  has  had  to  suffer  under  their  administration 
at  the  hands  of  their  political  opponents.  The  German 
bench  is  far  above  any  suspicion  of  bias  except  that 
which  comes  with  the  belief  held  in  official  circles  that 
the  SociaHsts  are  public  enemies,  combined  with  a 
reverence  for  those  in  authority  which  degenerates  at 
times  into  servility.  This,  the  SociaHst  press  has  con- 
tended, was  hardly  the  right  source  from  which  it  might 
expect  a  square  deal.  In  the  nineties  and  the  earliest 
years  of  the  present  century  heavy  sentences,  often 
from  three  to  five  years  in  prison,  were  pronounced 
against  Social  Democratic  editors  for  Use  majeste.  The 
modification  of  the  law  in  1908  (cf.  page  108)  did  much 
to  soften  the  tone  of  the  Socialist  and  Radical  press 
towards  royalty  in  Prussia ;  but  prosecutions  for  hbel 
still  occur  when  the  press  of  these  parties  breaks  the 
bounds  prescribed  by  conservative  feeling  in  its  criti- 
cism of  some  municipal  official  or  even  of  a  minister  of 
state.  Such  cases  are  usually  fought  bitterly  up  through 
the  various  courts  and  usually  result  in  a  con\'iction. 
With  the  increase  of  the  number  and  influence  of  the 
Socialist  press  —  the  party  had  by  1910  established 
daily  newspapers  in  more  than  68  cities  —  the  watch- 
fulness of  prosecuting  officers  under  the  inspiration  of 
the  higher  provincial  officials  is  kept  constantly  alert. 
All  of  this  has  not  tended  to  soften  the  tone  of  the 
Socialist  editor,  who  never  turns  the  other  cheek  to  the 
smiter.  This  unfortunate  state  of  affairs  has  done  much 
to  lower  the  tone  of  pohtical  discussion  in  Germany  to  a 
bitterness  and  brutality,  which,  especially  in  electoral 
campaigns,  swells  into  a  crescendo  of  billingsgate  and 
presents  a  most  unattractive  side  of  the  German  press. 


384    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

No  stronger  evidence  could  be  presented  that  the  cure 
for  the  shrill  outbreaks  of  political  immaturity  is  to  be 
found  in  liberty  and  not  in  constant  paternal  correction. 

In  spite  of  these  false  notes,  the  lack  of  sensationalism 
in  the  treatment  of  news  is  one  of  the  most  refreshing 
characteristics  of  the  German  press.  The  fact  that  in 
Prussia  and  in  some  other  German  states  every  issue 
must  show  the  names  of  the  persons  responsible  for  the 
news  and  editorial  portions  and  for  the  advertising 
columns  is  a  guarantee ;  and  the  innate  German  love  of 
truth  and  hatred  of  sham  hangs  heavy  on  the  success 
of  those  metropolitan  sheets  which  show  a  dangerous 
tendency  to  rival  the  yellow  papers  of  France  and 
America.  That  these  tendencies  are  manifest  in  some 
of  the  Berlin  papers  is  not  to  be  denied,  and  it  is  to  be 
expected  that  they  will  continue  to  grow  in  proportion 
as  the  Americanization  of  the  imperial  capital  eman- 
cipates the  individual  spirit  from  the  traditions  of  the 
past.  But  the  whole  spirit  of  German  public  opinion 
is  opposed  to  this  hectic  demoralization  of  the  press.  A 
few  years  ago,  when  an  enterprising  Berlin  firm  estab- 
lished an  illustrated  weekly  on  the  model  of  those 
British  and  American  papers  which  have  a  maximum 
of  the  personal  in  pictures  and  articles  and  a  minimum 
of  news  and  literature,  the  undertaking  was  received 
with  a  shaking  of  heads  everywhere.  "This  personal 
advertisement  is  against  the  genius  of  our  people,"  re- 
marked a  prominent  Leipsic  business  man  concerning 
it.  "It  is  an  importation  from  America  and  is  fostering 
a  spirit  which  Germany  has  never  known."  It  must 
be  said  in  defense  of  America,  however,  that  the  German 
press  admits  without  hesitation  advertisements  and  a 
sort  of  humor  which  in  America  would  be  impossible 
in  any  paper  using  the  mails. 

The  reformation  of  the  libel  laws  cannot  long  be  de- 
layed in  Germany,  and  the  result  will  almost  certainly 
be  an  improvement  in  the  tone  of  political  and  pubHc 


THE   PRESS  AND   PUBLIC  OPINION  385 

discussion.  It  is,  however,  very  improbable  that  the 
tone  of  the  German  daily  papers  will  be  much  bright- 
ened thereby.  The  staring  headlines  which  form  such 
a  feature  of  the  foreign  press  the  German  newspaper 
reader  knows  only  in  a  mild  form :  he  demands  that 
he  be  given  that  which  is  true  or  at  least  that  which  is 
in  accord  with  his  ideas  of  the  truth,  and  wants  no 
trifling  with  his  news  in  order  to  make  it  sensational. 
The  interesting  "write-up"  of  the  American  or  English 
reporter  cannot  therefore  find  a  place  in  a  paper  which 
takes  itself  and  its  functions  so  seriously.  The  editor 
may  himself  destroy  the  effect  of  the  news  by  critical 
interpolations,  but  these  spring  in  most  cases  from  soul 
convictions  which  are  those  of  the  reader  himself.  The 
latter  disdains  any  attempt  to  make  either  news  or 
editorial  matter  interesting,  and  this  paired  with  the 
German  lack  of  feeling  for  Uterary  form  makes  the 
German  press  dull  reading  for  those  who  seek  in  it 
anything  Hke  the  sparkle  and  crisply  classical  presen- 
tation of  the  Paris  journals.  The  dull  and  formal 
narration  of  the  news,  fortified  usually  by  editorial 
comment,  political  resumes,  rhodomontades  of  doubtful 
inspiration,  accurate  but  colorless  police  and  market 
reports,  with  here  and  there  an  outburst  of  Teutonic 
rage  against  foreign  competitors  or  political  opponents, 

—  these  make  up  the  current  parts  of  the  newspapers, 
and  certainly  do  not  appeal  to  those  who  read  the 
journals  for  the  froth  of  life  or  expect  from  them  models 
of  literary  excellence. 

Since  Schopenhauer's  day,  indeed,  "newspaper  Ger- 
man" has  been  a  term  of  contempt.     "Pig  German, 

—  I  beg  pardon,  —  newspaper  German  !"  exclaimed  the 
celebrated  pessimist  more  than  half  a  century  ago  in  a 
memorable  essay  on  "The  Butchery  of  the  German 
Language."  "The  lingmstic  debauch,"  he  exclaimed 
in  his  customary  gentle  style,  "to  which  no  other  nation 
can  show  a  parallel,  seems  to  proceed  in  the  main  from 


386    THE  GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

the  political  newspapers,  the  lowest  form  of  literature, 
and  go  from  them  into  the  literary  journals  and  j&nally 
into  books."  It  is  certain  that  newspaper  German  has 
done  nothing  to  remove  this  reproach  since  Schopen- 
hauer's day;  indeed,  the  style  of  German  prose,  which 
seems  to  grow  more  cumbersome  and  unwieldy  every 
year,  can  charge  much  of  its  degeneracy  to  the  daily 
and  weekly  press.  An  illustrated  journal  of  the  highest 
standing  introduces  to  its  readers  a  series  of  pictures 
''  from  the  by-the-Russians-temporarily-occupied-and- 
by-the  -  German-army-under-the  -  brilliant  -  leadership-of- 
General-von-Hindenburg-gloriously-reconquered  prov- 
ince of  East  Prussia,"  and  similar  sins  against  all  of  the 
muses  may  be  found  in  the  best  journals.  Of  recent 
years  a  reaction  has  been  observable,  led  by  papers 
Uke  the  Vossische  Zeitung  of  Berlin,  "Auntie  Voss," 
as  it  is  humorously  called  by  its  contemporaries,  which 
looks  back  on  a  century  and  three-quarters  of  Hterary 
history  since  no  less  a  stylist  than  young  Gotthold 
Ephraim  Lessing  contributed  to  its  early  numbers,  or 
the  Frankfurter  Zeitung,  which  commands  some  very 
able  pens. 

Such  criticisms  of  the  German  newspaper  as  litera- 
ture, however,  apply  only  to  its  news  and  editorial 
columns.  Besides  these  transient  expressions  of  the 
popular  spirit  which  are  written  day  by  day  and  exist 
only  for  a  day,  the  German  journals,  provincial  and 
metropolitan  alike,  offer  each  day  a  mass  of  material, 
which  is  not  merely  Hterature  in  the  strict  sense  of  the 
word,  but  which  for  richness  and  variety  of  literary  and 
scientific  material  has  no  equal  anywhere  in  the  world's 
press.  It  is  the  custom  for  most  papers  to  maintain  a 
feuilleton,  separated  from  news  and  editorial  matter 
by  a  type-bar,  which  reserves  the  lower  half  of  the  page 
for  matters  of  more  lasting  content,  non-contempora- 
neous or  quasi-contemporaneous  in  their  interest.  This 
essay  was  a  French  invention  developed  in  Germany 


THE   PRESS  AND   PUBLIC   OPINION  387 

early  in  the  nineteenth  century  by  the  Jewish  prose 
virtuoso  Heinrich  Heine,  and  it  has  cultivated  a  light- 
ness and  gracefulness  of  style  which  is  strikingly  in 
contrast  to  the  soggy  editorial  or  news  paragraph.  In 
light  essays  on  science,  Hterature  or  art,  the  whole  field 
of  modern  culture  is  laid  under  tribute  wdth  a  style 
which  recalls  the  conversational  tone  of  the  drawing 
room  or  club.  The  feuilleton  writers  of  Germany  lack 
the  grace  which  marks  the  best  salon  literateurs  of  the 
French  press ;  but  they  count  among  them  some  of  the 
most  brilliant  styhsts  of  the  nation  and  maintain  a 
high  standard  in  the  wealth  and  variety  of  their  scientific 
material. 

To  these  articles  of  critical  and  conversational  tone 
are  to  be  added  hterary  works,  such  as  novels  by  the 
best  authors  of  Germany,  pubhshed  serially  in  the 
daily  papers.  Gerhart  Hauptmann's  Atlantis  first 
appeared  in  the  daily  edition  of  the  Berlin  Tageblatt, 
and  other  names  scarcely  less  well  known  on  the  Ger- 
man Parnassus  are  to  be  found  in  the  daily  press  of  the 
larger  cities.  Articles  of  more  solid  import  appear  in 
special  supplements,  forming  a  weekly  or  semi- weekly 
part  of  the  larger  papers.  Some  of  these  command  the 
ablest  pens  in  Germany  in  the  field  of  literature,  art  and 
science,  and  become  an  indispensable  reference  material 
for  investigators  and  critics.  Indeed,  the  Hterary 
criticism  of  such  papers  as  the  Berlin  Tag  and  the 
Vossische  Zeitung  or  the  Cologne  Volkszeitung  is  among 
the  best  that  appears  anywhere  in  Germany.  The 
well-nigh  inexhaustible  wealth  of  material  offered  in 
this  way  may  be  shown  by  a  resume  of  the  various 
supplements  issued  wathin  one  week  to  accompany  the 
morning  and  afternoon  news  and  editorial  matter  and 
market  reports  of  a  large  Berlin  newspaper :  a  technical 
supplement  of  eight  pages ;  a  supplement  containing 
essays  on  legal  subjects,  four  pages;  a  literary  review, 
two  pages ;    an  illustrated  supplement,   six  pages ;    a 


388     THE   GERMAN  EMPIRE  BETWEEN  TWO  WARS 

comical  supplement,  six  pages ;  a  household  supple- 
ment, six  pages;  and  a  page  each  for  women's  affairs, 
for  art  and  drama  criticism  and  for  tourists.  In  addi- 
tion the  regular  issues  contained  a  letter  from  China 
on  pohtico-economic  subjects,  a  sketch  of  the  Hungarian 
drama,  and  essays  on  the  teaching  of  pedagogics  in  the 
universities  and  on  the  sleeping  sickness  in  the  African 
colonies,  and  one  page  daily  devoted  to  a  review  of 
sports,  mostly  horse  racing  and  aeronautics. 

It  is  evident  that  while  the  German  newspaper  does 
not  as  a  newsgatherer  satisfy  western  demands,  it 
brings  to  its  readers  each  day  a  wealth  of  material 
which  in  other  lands  would  find  its  way  into  the 
''heavier"  magazines  or  into  scientific  periodicals. 
It  is  evident  also  that  while  the  German  who  reads 
his  chosen  newspaper  may  be  insufficiently  informed 
or  biassed  regarding  that  which  is  called  in  press  par- 
lance "live  news,"  he  is  schooled  in  scientific  methods 
of  observation  and  inquiry  and  in  accuracy  of  report- 
ing regarding  those  things  which  can  be  divorced  from 
the  ephemeral  passions  of  the  day.  He  finds  in  his 
daily  or  weekly  journal  not  so  much  a  raconteur  of  the 
day's  doings  as  a  pedagogue  and  staid  mentor,  who 
dehghts  to  lead  him  into  the  devious  paths  of  science 
or  the  romantic  world  of  ideas  and  ideals.  The  peda- 
gogical instinct  and  the  enthusiasm  for  knowledge  for 
its  own  sake,  the  love  of  truth  and  the  careful  accuracy 
in  method,  narrowness  of  political  view  and  passionate 
insistence  on  the  personal  standpoint :  these  ingredients 
of  German  character  are  nowhere  more  clearly  exempli- 
fied than  in  the  nation's  press. 


INDEX 


Abdul  Hamid  11  (1842-  ),  sultan  of 
Turkey,  43,  77,  90,  92,  192. 

Abschlusspriifung,  343. 

Accident  Insurance  Act,  181. 

Adana,  92. 

Adige,  42. 

administrative  board,  cf.  City. 

Adriatic,  42,  44,  68. 

^gean  Sea,  36,  92. 

Aegidi,  Ludwig  Karl  (1825-igoi),  367. 

Afghanistan,  54. 

Agadir,  8,  18,  62. 

Agence  Havas,  362,  371. 

Agrarian  League,  128,  151,  152,  151- 
154,  165,  378. 

Agrarian  Party,  cf.  Conser\'ative- 
agrarian. 

agrarian  tariff,  152-154. 

Ai.x-la-ChapelIe,  221,  270,  280. 

Albania,  19,  36,  43-46,  68. 

Aleppo,  93. 

Alexander  (1857-93),  Prince  of  Bul- 
garia, 31. 

Alexander  II  (1818-81),  Czar  of  Russia, 
6,  27. 

Algeciras  Conference,  17,  39,  42,  48, 
49,  62,  III,  115. 

Algeria,  16. 

Alliance  of  the  Middle  Classes,   165. 

Alsace,  3,  4,  218,  219,  364. 

Alsace-Lorraine,  annexation,  3,  4, 
217;  French  resentment  over,  7, 
10,  20,  30,  72;  early  government 
under  empire,  221-223;  constitu- 
tion of,  106,  134,  156,  191,  212, 
225;  in  the  Reichstag,  117,  120, 
123,  222,  224;  German  claim  to, 
217-221;  popular  feeling  toward 
Germany  in,  223-232,  265;  prog- 
ress in  Germanization,  233  ;  govern- 
ment of  cities  in,  277,  285,  289. 


Altona,  315. 

Altona  reform  school,  331,  332. 

America,  58,  84,  264,  289,  326,  363, 
365,  379,  384- 

Anatolia,  92. 

Anatolian  Railway,  92,  93. 

Andrassy,  Julius  (1823-90),  28,  34. 

Ansiedlungs-Gesetz,  250. 

anti- Jesuit  law^  208. 

anti-modemist  oath,  207. 

anti-national  parties,  117,  121,  123. 

anti-socialist  laws,  181,  182. 

Argentine,  85. 

armed  peace,  72. 

Armenian  massacres,  90. 

Asquith,  Herbert  H.  (1852-  ),  62. 

Associated  Press,  58. 

Association  for  Housing  Reform,  Ger- 
man, 301. 

Association  Law,  German,  250. 

Association  of  Eastern  Marches,  Ger- 
man, 249. 

Asia  Minor,  39,  42,  90. 

Atlattiis,  Hauptmann's,  387. 

Augsburg,  177,  273,  302. 

Austria,  in  alliance  with  Germany,  6, 
7,  26-28,  31 ;  leans  on  Germany  in 
the  Balkans,  11,  35-37,  40,  41, 
373 ;  annexes  Bosnia  and  Herze- 
govina, 34-35  ;  German  element  in, 
37~3Q;  in  rivalry  with  Italy,  41, 
44-46;  Poles  in,  235,  239,  244,  264; 
illiteracy  in,  323. 

Austrian  ultimatum  to  Serbia,  40. 

Austro-German  Alliance,  26-38,  35, 
38-41. 

Baden,  suffrage  in,  141 ;  Socialists,  188; 
Kulturkampf  in,  203-204 ;  cities  of, 
285,  289,  292 ;  schools  of,  327,  341, 
358. 


389 


39° 


INDEX 


Bagdad,  q2,  95. 

Bagdad  Railway,  69,  94. 

Balkan  Alliance,  11,  36,  67,  68,  91. 

Balkan  states,  28,  30,  39,  54,  115,  200. 

Balkan  wars,  11,  45,  67,  91. 

Ballin,  Albert  (1857-  ),  163. 

banca  ludowy,  253. 

Barbarossa,  Frederick  (1121-89),  Ger- 
manic emperor,  65,  89. 

Barmen,  160,  168,  272,  297. 

Bassermann,  Ernst  (1854-  ),  170,  172. 

Bassora,  95. 

Bavaria,  overseas'  enthusiasm  in,  61 ; 
Conservatives  in,  121;  subordinates 
local  interests,  140 ;  national  char- 
acteristics of,  141 ;  Socialists  in, 
188;  religion  in,  200;  in  KuUur- 
kampf,  203,  204 ;  Center  party  in, 
213;  cities  of,  277,  298,  307  ;  schools 
of,  320,  323,  327,  335,  337,  345, 
3SO,  352. 

Bavarian  Palatinate,  115;  cf.  Rhine 
Palatinate. 

Bebel,  August  (1840-1913),  179,  180, 
186,  197. 

Befestigungs-Gesetz,  250. 

Belfort,  23. 

Belgium,  13,  68,  70,  80,  201,  323. 

Belgrade,  40. 

Berlin,  press,  58,  74,  361-363,  374, 
37S,  381,  384;  growth  of,  269, 
270;  government  of,  278,  280,  282, 
285,  286,  290;  trading  enterprises, 
29s ;  land  values,  301 ;  popular 
culture,  312,  314,  315;  Realschulen, 
332  ;   church  tax,  348,  349. 

Berlin  Congress,  28,  54,  86. 

Berlin  Exposition  for  City  Building, 
306,  307. 

Berlin  group  (Roman  Catholic),  210. 

Berlin  Lokalanzciger,  369. 

Berlin  Merchants'  Association,  301. 

Berlin  Neueste  Nachrichten,  378. 

Berlin  Post,  6,  375. 

Berlin  Produce  Exchange,  151. 

Berlin  Schloss,  136. 

Berlin  Schlossplatz,  129,  308. 

Berlin  Tag,  387. 

Berlin  Tageblatt,  174,  363,  375,  377, 
387. 

Bernstein,  Edward  (1850-    ),  185,  186. 


Bethmann-Hollweg,  Theobald  von 
(1856-    ),  115,  116,  130,  134,  137. 

Beust,  Friedrich  von  (1809-86),  26. 

Bezirk,  285. 

Bismarck,  Otto  von  (1815-98), 
policy  toward  France,  3,  7,  10,  15, 
20;  toward  Austria,  26-28;  toward 
Russia,  31 ;  toward  the  Balkans,  35  ; 
toward  England,  54 ;  view  of  treaties, 
46;  of  British  liberalism,  52,  53;  of 
diplomacy,  75,  76,  83 ;  of  universal 
suSrage,  102 ;  of  Prussian  liberalism, 
105,  139;  of  a  responsible  ministry, 
114;  of  German  parties,  116,  117; 
policy  toward  German  parties,  118, 
119,  122-124,  148,  151,  iss; 
toward  the  Socialists,  178,  180- 
182 ;  toward  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  204,  205,  209;  toward 
Alsace-Lorraine,  217,  222,  223 ; 
toward  the  Poles,  244,  246;  toward 
the  press,  367,  368. 

Bismarck  Archipelago,  85. 

Bismarck's  Memoirs  {Gedanken  und 
Erinnerungen),  53. 

block  system,  126,  130,  132. 

"blue-black"  block,  130,  206. 

Bochum,  168,  273. 

Bof'enstedt,  Friedrich  von   (1819-92), 

93- 
Boer  republics,  56,  57. 
Boer  War,  51,  53,  57-61,  70,  iii,  112, 

373. 
Bohemia,  38,  265. 
Bonn,  270. 
Bordeaux,  3,  217. 
Bosnia,  28,  30,  34. 
Bosphorus,  28,  54. 
Boulanger,   Georges  Ernst   (1837-91), 

8. 
Bourgogne,  220. 
Boxers,  Chinese,  79,  88. 
Brazil,  85. 

Brandenburg,  139,  155,  276. 
Brant,  Sebastian  (1457-1521),  218. 
Brenner,  48. 

Breslau,  269,  283,  302,  312. 
Briand,  Aristide  (1862-     ),  7. 
Brindisi,  47. 

Brunhuber,  Robert  (quoted),  360. 
Brunswick,  122,  123. 


INDEX 


391 


Bukowina,  232. 

Biilow,    Bernard    Ernst    von    (1815- 

79).  139- 
Biilow,  Bernard,  Prince  von  (1849-     ), 

III,    112,    115,   116,    129,    130,    206, 

247,  248. 
Bund  der  Landwirte,  128;  cf.  Agrarian 

League. 
Bundesrat,     101-104,    108,    log,    126, 

134,    140,    156,    208,    212,    223;     cf. 

Federal  Council. 
Biirgerschule,     326,     328,     347;      cf. 

Middle  School, 
burgomaster,  284,  285,  2S6. 
Busch,    Moritz    (1821-gg),    7,    53,    54, 

367. 
Byron,  52,  235. 

Cambon,  Jules  (1845-    ),  18. 

Camorra,  48. 

Canossa,  204. 

Caprivi,  Count  George  Leo  von 
(1831-99),  II,  31,  32,  115,  127,  148, 
152,  20s,  247. 

Cartels,  62. 

Casablanca,  17. 

Cassel,  102,  315. 

Catarro,  44. 

Catholic  labor  unions,  168,  169,  194, 
211,  213. 

Catholic  Workingmen's  Union,  Ger- 
man, 211. 

Cavour,  Coimt  di  (1810-61),  29. 

Centre  party  (cf.  Clerical  party),  60, 
III,  117,  122,  123,  129,  130,  132, 
14s,  201-216,  225,  260,  280,  337. 

Champagne,  22,  222. 

Charlemagne,  29,  237. 

Charlottenburg,  303,  ^55. 

Chemnitz,  160. 

Chemnitz  Royal  Industrial  Academy, 
333. 

China,  75,  388. 

Churchill,   Winston   (1874-    ),   64. 

Cilicia,  43. 

city,  German,  administrative  board, 
277,  281-284;  art,  307;  art  muse- 
ums, 315;  banks,  298;  citizen 
council,  277,  279,  283;  government, 
275-293 ;  growth,  270-274 ;  labor 
bureaus,    281,    298;    land   purchase. 


300-303;  legal  bureaus,  300; 
libraries,  310;  music  and  theatres, 
3i3~3i5;  overcrowding,  300-301, 
303^305 ;  ownership  and  trading, 
294-297 ;  Ordinances,  275 ;  pawn- 
shops, 298;  planning,  306,  307; 
playgrounds,  310;    price  fixing,  297. 

Civita  Vecchia,  29. 

Clerical  party  (cf.  Centre  party), 
10,  48,  117,  120,  122,  127,  152, 
IS3,  157,  159,  168,  172,  345,  349, 
357- 

Clerical  supervision  of  schools,  321, 
357,  358. 

coal  strikes,  167,  168,  217. 

coal  syndicate,  167. 

Coblenz,  221. 

Cologne,  58,  89,  125,  144,  160,  221, 
269,  274,  277,  278,  280,  283,  297, 
302,  361. 

Cologne  group  (Roman  Catholic),  210. 

Cologne  Volkszeiiung,  387. 

Colonial  Museum,  88. 

Colonial  Society,  88. 

Colonies,  81,  85-89,  213. 

Combes,  Justin  Louis  (1835-  ),  204, 
215. 

commercial  treaties,  152. 

commercial  universities,  55,   271,  312. 

Commune,  Paris,  7. 

compulsory  workingmen's  insurance, 
9,  38,  66,  119,  127,  178,  181,  182, 
284,  293. 

confessional  schools,  352,  353. 

Confirmation  Law,  250. 

Congress  of  Berlin,  28,  54,  86. 

Congress  of  Vienna,  86. 

conquered  provinces,  217-233. 

Conservative-agrarian  group,  120, 121, 
127,  149,  150,  163,  igo. 

Conservative  party,  iii,  112,  117, 
128-130,  151-153,  168,  172,  280, 
337,  345,  349,  357,  366,  375- 

Constantinople,  11,  58,  77,  90,  91. 

continuation  schools,  322,  334,  360. 

Corfu,  89. 

Council  of  Basel,  210;  of  Constance, 
210. 

Counter-reformation,  238. 

Cracow,  254. 

Crefeld,  160,  288. 


392 


INDEX 


crematories,  144,  288. 

Crete,  g2. 

Crispi,  Francesco  (1819-1901),  41. 

Croat,  38. 

Cromwell,  147. 

Cyrenaica,  58. 

Czech,  38,  39,  264,  265. 

Daily  Telegraph  inter\'iew,  59,  in,  373. 

DaLmatia,  44. 

Damara  Land,  86,  87. 

Danes,  120,  224,  275. 

d'Annunzio,  Gabriele  (1864-    ),  43. 

Danzig,  237. 

Dardanelles,  27,  gi. 

deathrate,  German,  80,  81. 

Debussey,    Claude   Achille    (1862-     ), 

24. 
Decazes,  Louis  Charles,  due  (1819-86), 

16. 
Defense  Bill,   11,   12,   20,  37,  61,  67, 

97,  131,  187,  374. 
Delcasse,     Theophile     (1852-    ),      8, 

17,  IIS- 
Deutsche  Bank,  93,  163. 
Deutsche  Revue,  360. 
Deutsche  Rundschau,  360. 
Deutsche  Tageszeitung,  375,  378. 
Deutsche!  Lehrerv-erein,  320,  325. 
Deutscher  Ostmarkenverein,  249. 
Deutschfreisinnige,  118,  173. 
dictatorship  paragraph,  222. 
Diedenhofen,  221. 
diplomacy,    German,    15,    16,    18,    22, 

71,  75,  77- 
distress  work,  299. 
Dittrich,  Franz  (1839-     ),  215. 
Dortmund,  160,  361. 
Dresden,  58,  160,  269,  277,  280,  314, 

315- 

Dreyer,  Max  (1862-    ),  354. 

Dreyfus,  Alfred  (1859-  ),  8,  14,  15, 
114. 

Dual  Alliance,  32,  34,  59;  cf.  Franco- 
Russian  coalition. 

Duke  of  Cumberland,  123. 

Durazzo,  45,  46. 

Diisseldorf,  160,  271,  272,  283,  299, 
303,  306  308,  309,  315,  320,  361,  378. 

Diisseldorf  Exposition  for  City  Build- 
ing, 306. 


East  Africa,  86,  87. 

Eastern  Marches,  The,  250. 

East    Prussia,     121,     158,     190,     248, 

254.  257. 
Eg>'pt,  4,  42,  79,  94- 
Einheitschule,  332. 
Eisenach  Convention,  179. 
Elberfeld,  160,  298,  301. 
elementary  industrial  schools,  333,  334. 
elementary  school,  cf.  VoLksschule. 
Elternstunden,  300. 
emigration,  81,  84. 
Emperor,   German,    106,   108,   no. 
Engels,  Friedrich  (1820-85),   183- 
England,    18,    24,    41,    50-71,    81,    83, 

299,  326,  359,  363,  365- 
Enteignungs-Gesetz,  250. 
Enver  Bey,  91. 
Epirus,  45,  46. 
Erfurt  Platform,  185,  186. 
Er^Hn  von  Steinbach  (?-i3i8),  218. 
Essad  Pasha,  45. 
Essen,  160,  168,  278,  303. 
Euphrates,  69,  93-95. 
European  Turkey,  35. 
Evangelical  Church,  197. 
Evangelical-Social  Congress,  301. 
Expropriation  Law,  250. 

Far  East,  82,  84. 

Federal  Chancellor,  cf.  Imperial  Chan- 
cellor. 

Federal  Council,  cf.  Bundesrat. 

Ferry,  Jules  (1832-93),  7,  15. 

feuilleton,  386. 

Fez,   18. 

Fichte,  Johann  Gottlieb  (1762-1814), 
318. 

Fischart,  Johann   (1545-90),   218. 

Fischer,  Anton  (1832-1912),  Cardinal, 
211. 

fleet  building,  German,  60,  61,  83, 
88. 

Folk  Bank,  253,  255. 

Foreign  Legion,  17. 

Forstrat,  284. 

Fortschrittliche  Volkspartei,  118,  172, 

173- 
France,  3-25,  72,  127,  142,  217,  219- 
221,  227,    228,    230-233,    289,  359, 
363,  365.  376,  384- 


INDEX 


393 


Franche  Comte,  22. 

Francis   Ferdinand    (1863-1914),    heir 

apparent  of  Austro-Hungar>',  40. 
Francis  Joseph  (1830-    ),  emperor  of 

Austria,  26,  38. 
Franco-Russian    coalition     (cf.    Dual 

Alliance),  15,  17,  32,  67. 
Frank,  Ludwig  (1874-1914),   198. 
Frankfort  on  the  Main,  269,  272,  280, 

297,  302-307,  313.  315.  362. 
Frankfort  Parliament,  52,  236. 
Frankfort  reform  schools,  331,  332. 
Frankfort  University,  313. 
Frankfurter  Zeitung,  64,  174,  373.  386. 
Frederick   (1831-S8),  crown  prince  of 

Prussia,  26,  52,  53 ;  German  emperor, 

55.  105. 
Frederick  of  Hohenzollem  (1371-1440), 

Elector  of  Brandenburg,  155. 
Frederick   the   Great    (1712-S6),    king 

of  Prussia,  24,  51,  264,  318,  322,  349. 
Frederick  William  I  (1688-1740),  king 

of  Prussia,  342. 
Frederick  William  III  (1770-1840),  240. 
Frederick    William    IV     (1795-1861), 

106,  142,  241. 
Free  Conservatives,  120,  145,  156. 
Freisinnige,  170. 
Freisinnige  Vereinigung,  118. 
Freisinnige  Volkspartei,  118. 
French  Congo,  19. 
Freytag,  Gustav  (1816-95),  314,  364. 

Galicia,  232,  244,  260,  263. 

Gambetta,  Leon  (1838-82),  7. 

Gartenlaube,  Die,  360. 

Gazeta  Grudzionska,  272. 

Gelsenkirchen,  273. 

Gemeinde,  276. 

Gemeinderat,  281. 

Genoa,  47. 

German  Conservatives,  120. 

"German  peril,"  62. 

German  Workingmen's  Party,  179. 

Germania,  Die,  208,  375. 

Gnesen  Lech,  251. 

Goethe,  52,  93,  218,  317. 

Golden  Book  of  Senators,  106. 

Golden  Horn,  58,  gi. 

Goltz,  Kolmar  von  der  (1843-    ),  43. 

Gothein,  Georg  (1857-    ),  174. 


Gotthard,  48. 

Gottingen,  270,  350. 

Grafenstaden,  226. 

Graudenz,  245. 

Gravelotte,  23. 

Great  Britain  (cf.   England),  18,  51, 

270. 
Great  Elector,  87. 
Greater  Berlin,  301. 
Greater  Germany,  61,  212. 
Greater  Poland,  39,  45. 
Greater  Serbia,  40. 
Greece,  36,  235. 

Grey,  Sir  Edward  (1862-     ),  268. 
Grillparzer,  314. 
Guelph  party,  117,  120,  122,  123,   140, 

224. 
Guiscard,  Robert,  76. 
Gulf  of  Alexandretta,  92. 
Gumbinnen,  192. 

Gwinner,  Arthur  von  (1856-     ),   163. 
Gymnasium,   321,   327-329,   331,   339, 

351- 

Habsburg,  26,  29,  34,  38. 

Halle,  300,  350. 

Hallesches  Tor,  229. 

Hambom,  276. 

Hamburg,  274,  309,  312,  313,  332. 

Hamhirger  Nachrichten,  374. 

Hammerstein,    William,    Freiherr   von 

(1838-?),  368. 
Handelshochschule,  55,  312. 
Hannoverische  Kurier,  372,  375. 
Hanotaux,  Gabriele  (1853-     ),  72. 
Hanover,  58,  102,  117,  122,  123,  225, 

244,  279,  30s,  342. 
Hansa  League,  93,  274. 
Harden,     Maximilian     (1861-     ),     24, 

108. 
Hauptmann,  Gerhart  (1862-     ),  387. 
Hausbesitzerprivileg,  279. 
Heckenroth,  Ludwig  (1867-    ),  344. 
Heine,  Heinrich  (1797-1856),  235,  387. 
Helfferich,    Kari    Theodor    (1872-     ), 

163. 
Hellenic  kingdom,  46. 
Henry  IV,  Germanic  Emperor,   1050- 

1106,  204. 
Henry  V,   Germanic  Emperor,    1106- 

1125,  65. 


394 


INDEX 


Henry  VI,  Germanic  Emperor,  1165- 
1197,  89. 

Hercynia  potash  mine,  166,  178. 

Herero,  86,  129. 

Hertling-Georg,  Freiherr  von  (1843-  ), 
208. 

Herzegovina,  28,  30,  34. 

Hesperus,  Jean  Paul's,  52. 

Hesse-Cassel,  102,  225. 

Hesse  (Grand  Duchy  of  Hesse-Darm- 
stadt), 10,  88,  277,  281,  289,  292, 
347,  352,  358. 

Heydebrand,  Ernst  von  (1851-     ),  163. 

Hildesheim,  307. 

Hilfschulen,  352. 

Hirsch-Duncker  labor  unions,  167, 
194. 

Hohenlohe,  Chlodowig  von  H.- 
Schillingfiirst  (1819-1901),  115, 
127,    205. 

Hohenstaufen,  48. 

Hohenzollern,  10,  26,  55,  65,  115,  123, 
146,  149. 

Holland,  72,  93. 

Holy  AlHance,  27. 

Holy  Roman  Empire,  65,  89,  219. 

House  of  Commons,  63,  64. 

House  of  the  Butchers'  Guild,  Hildes- 
heim, 307. 

housing  problem,  294,  300. 

Humboldt  Academy,  312. 

Humboldt,  Wilhelm  von  (1767-1835). 
318. 

Hungary,  27,  265. 

illiteracy,  German,  14,  323. 
Immaculate  Conception,  203. 
Imperial  Chancellor,   115,   116,   134. 
Imperial  Diet  (cf.  Reichstag),  119,  120, 

126. 
Imperial  Land,  123,  222,  225,  227-230. 
Imperial  party,  120,  165,  339. 
imperial    prerogative,    104,    106,    107, 

109,  no. 
Imperial  School  Commission,  343. 
Imperial  Supreme  Court,  66. 
income  tax,  170,  376. 
increment  tax,  131. 
India,  42,  79,  87,  94. 
inheritance   tax,    130,    131,    170,    171, 

376. 


Ionic  islands,  46. 

inorganic  constitutions,  142. 

intermediate  industrial  schools,  333. 

internationaUsm,  197. 

Italy,  19,  28-31,  41-49.  58,  72,  75- 

Italia  Irridenta,  44. 

Italian-Turkish  War,  19,  42-44,  48,  91. 

Jagiello,    king   of   Poland,    1386-1434, 

238. 
Jagow,  Traugott  von  (1865-     ),   230, 

292. 
Jameson,  Leander  Starr  (1853-     ),  56- 
Japanese-Russian  War,  53,  37,  62,  264. 
Jena,  3,  193,  270. 
Jean  Paul  (Richter),  51,  52. 
Jerusalem,  90. 
Jeshurun,  78. 
Jesuits,  201,  206,  208. 
Jews,  197. 

Journalisten,  Die,  Frey tag's,  315-364. 
Julian  Alps,  44. 
Junker,   27,    136,    144,    147,    148,    150, 

152,  153,  159,  178. 
Jiiterbog,  13,  192. 

Kaempf,  Johannes  (1842-    ),   136. 

Kamenm,  85. 

Kammerer,  284. 

Karl     Eugen     (1728-93),     Duke     of 

Wiirtemberg,  318. 
Karlsruhe,  302,  306. 
Kassubs,  24s,  255. 
Kautzky,  Karl  (1854-    ),   186. 
Kiao  Chau,  79. 
Kiel,  208. 
Kinderlen-Waechter,  Alfred  von  (1852- 

1912),  18,  126. 
Kipling,  54. 
Kirschner,    Martin    (1842-1912),    282, 

286. 
Kitchener,  Earl  (1850-     ),  112. 
Kolnische    Zeitung,  64,    78,    363,  367, 

372,  374.  379- 
Konia,  92,  93. 
Konigsberg,  269. 
Konigsplatz,  Berlin,  122. 
Kopp,    Georg,    Cardinal    (1837-1914). 

210. 
Kreuzzeitung,     14s, 

368,  374.  377- 


155,      190,     367. 


INDEX 


395 


Kriiger,  Paul  (1825-1004),  56. 
Krupp,  IS,  163,  278,  378. 
Kultur danger,  87. 

Kullurkampf,  6,  122,  204,  205,  208, 
209,  216,  242,  258,  260,  353,  357. 

Ladysmith,  58. 

Lagow,  276. 

Lamprecht,  Karl  (1856-1915),  178. 

Landesschulrat,  341. 

Landrat,  276,  372,  378. 

Landsturm,  342. 

Landtag,  Prussian  (cf.  Prussian  Diet), 
143,  144,  155,  166,  169,  1S9,  190,  202, 
207,    246,   255,   260,   278,    284,   334, 

339- 
Lasalle,  Ferdinand  (1825-64),  179. 
League  of  Polish  Societies,  254. 
Ledebour,  Georg  (1850-     ),  192. 
Lederer,  Hugo,  309. 
Lehrfreiheit,  349. 
Leibniz,  318. 
Leipsic,    33,    66,    269,    274,    277,    279, 

280,    299,   304,   306,   308,   311,   315, 

384. 
Leo  Xin,  Pope,  1 878-1903,  204,  209. 
lese  majestd,  108,  383. 
Lessing,  314,  386. 
Lessing  Academy,  312. 
Levant,  90. 
libel  laws,  382,  384. 
Liberal  group,  118,  123,  124,  127,  128. 
Liberal-industrial  group,  120,  121. 
liberalism,  53,  61,  119. 
Liberals    (cf.    National   Liberals),    10, 

52,  117,  119  159. 
liberal-socialist  alliance,  172. 
Lichnowsky,  Prince  Karl  (i860-     ),  69. 
Lichtemberger,  Henri  (1864-     ),  24. 
Lieber,     Ernst     Moritz     (1838-1902), 

206. 
Liebknecht,  Karl  (1871-     ),  180,  192. 
Liebknecht,  Wilhelm  (1826-1900),  179, 

186. 
Liga  polska,  252. 

Liman  von  Sanders,  Otto  (1855-    ),  91. 
Linz,  237. 
Lithuania,  238. 
"little  Germans,"  86,  88,  174. 
Livonia.  23S. 
Lloyd  George,  Da\-id,  (1863-     ),  62. 


Lombardy,  43. 

London,  74,  274,  363,  368,  372. 

London  Conference,  19,  36,  37,  68. 

London  Daily  Chronicle,  73,  363. 

London  Daily  Telegraph,  59,  in,  373. 

London  Standard,  363. 

London  Times,  363. 

Lorraine,  3,  4,  23,  220. 

Loubet,  Emile  (1838-     ),  7. 

Louis  XIV  of  France,  219,  220. 

Low  Countries  270. 

Luther,  318,  349. 

Lutheran  Conservatives,  145. 

Macedonia,  42,  43,  90. 

MacMahon,   Count  Marie  de   (1808- 

93),  7- 
Madrid,  58. 
Mafeking,  58. 
Magistrat,  281. 
Magyars,  27,  265. 
Main,  350. 

Maistre,  Joseph  de  (1754-1821),  73. 
Maltese  Straits,  43,  48,  8g. 
Manchester  school,  151,  177. 
Mandel,  Karl  Wilhelm  (1851-     ),  226. 
Manila  harbor,  76. 
Mannheim,  160,  271,  280,  297. 
Manxifacturers'  Alliance,  German,  165. 
March  victims,  183. 
Marcinkowski  Association,  242,  243. 
Maritime  Alps,  41. 
Marschall    von     Bieberstein,      Adolf 

(1842-1912),  56,  68,  69,  76,  77,  91, 

372. 
Marshall  Islands,  86. 
Mars  la  Tour,  23,  223. 
Marx,  Karl   (1818-83),  179,  182,  183, 

197- 
Massenet,  Jules  Emile  (1842-     ),  24. 
Masurs,  254,  255. 
Mayence,  221,  274,  308. 
meat  scarcity,  166,  297. 
Mecklenburg,  128,  142,  245. 
Mecklenburg-Schwerin,  142. 
Mecklenburg-Strelitz,  142. 
Mediterranean,  29,  30,  39,  40. 
Meistersinger,  218. 
Melanchthon,  318. 
Memel,  264. 
Mercier,  Augusta  (1833-     ),  14. 


396 


INDEX 


Mesopotamia,  92,  94,  95,  364. 

Metz,  4,  23,  160,  219,  230-233,  270. 

Meuse,  22,  50. 

Middle  Schools,  326,  328. 

Minna  von  Barnhelm,  Lessing's,  315. 

Mirza  Sckaffy,  Songs  of,  Bodenstedt's, 

93- 
Moltke,  Hellmuth  von  (1800-91),  4,  5. 
Montenegro,  35,  36,  45. 
Mon  Village,  Waltz',  228. 
Moravians,  38. 
Morocco,    8,    11,    42,    62,    63,    65,    66, 

74,  78,  83,  114,  130.  183,  373. 
Moselle,  4,  22,  218,  220,  221,  230,  263. 
Most,  Otto  (1881-     ),  272,  312. 
Mosul,  92. 
Motu  proprio,  207. 
Mukden,  32. 
Miilhausen,  233. 

Miinchner  Allegemeine  Zeitung,  78. 
Miinchner  Neueste  Nachrichten,  375. 
Miinchner  Zeitung,  370. 
Munich,  58,   269,  300,  303,  314,  315, 

369,  381. 
Municipal,  cf.  City. 

Naples,  305. 

Napoleon  I   (1769-1821),    2,   53,    218, 

275- 
Napoleon  III  (1808-1873),  28,  29,  218. 
National  Assembly,  Bordeaux,  3,  217. 
National    Democratic    Party,    Polish, 

261. 
National  Liberal  Party,  53,   118,   124, 

125,    130,    131,    133,    152,    153-    IS7, 

165,    169,    170,    179,    212,    216,    280, 

375.  377- 

Naumann,  Friedrich  (i860-  ),  107, 
120,  174. 

Naumburg,  340. 

Navy  League,  61. 

neo-bourgeoisie,  French,  8. 

Neue  Zeit,  186. 

New  Guinea,  85. 

New  Kamerun,  19. 

"newspaper  German,"  385. 

Nicholas  I  (1841-  ),  king  of  Montene- 
gro, 35.  45- 

Niemen,  33. 

Nietzsche,  Friedrich  (1844-1900),  96. 

Nijni  Novgorod,  274. 


Nile,  95. 

nine-year  schools,  327-329. 

Norddeuische  Allgemeine  Zeitung,  367, 

371,  372. 
Nord  und  Siid,  360. 
North  Africa,  43,  58. 
North  German,  161,  196. 
North  German  Confederation,  10,  loi, 

102,  140,  161,  179,  203. 
North  Sea,  3,  50,  63,  65,  66,  89,  93, 

94. 
Nuremberg,  274,  307. 
Nuremberg  Convention,  189. 

Oberrealschule,  327,  329,  331. 

octroi,  293. 

Oder,  15s,  264. 

Old  Age  Pension  Act,  181. 

Old  Catholics,  203. 

Old  Liberal  Alliance,  172. 

Old  Mark,  121. 

"Oncle  Hansi,"  228. 

one-year  volunteer  examination,   319, 

343- 
one-year  volimteers,  327,  343,  344. 
open  ballot,  143,  149. 
Ordensland,  238. 
Orvieto,  305. 

Paasche,  Hermann  (1852-     ),  170. 

Panama,  15. 

Pan-German,    22,    55,  63,  65,   88,  96, 

231- 
Pan-Slavic,  245,  264. 
Panther,  18. 
papal  infallibility,  203. 
Papal  State,  203. 
parcellation  banks,  253. 
Paris,  IS,  21,  363,  367,  368,  373,  381, 

38s. 
paritatic  schools,  352,  355. 
paternal  despotism,  274,  286. 
peace  of  Frankfort,  4,  9,  217;  of  Rys- 

wick,  219;    of  Thorn,  238. 
Peninsular  Campaign,   51. 
"perfidious  Albion,"  51. 
Persia,  94,  95. 
Persian  Gulf,  94. 
Peters,  Karl  (1856-    ),  85. 
Picardy,  220. 
Pichon,  Stephen  (1857-     ),  115. 


INDEX 


397 


Pius  IX,  Pope,  1846-187S,  203,  204. 

Place  de  la  Concorde,  230. 

Platen,     Count    August    von    (1796- 

1835),  235. 
Po  Valley,  4S. 
Poincare,     Raymond     (i860-      ),     7, 

US- 
Point  du  Jour,  23. 
Poland,  234,  264. 
Poles,  38,  39,  120,  14s,  212,  224,  232, 

234-266,  338. 
police  power,  286-292. 
Polish  Catholic  Workingmen's    Clubs, 

252. 
Polish  danger,  264,  265. 
Polish   provinces,    237,    240-266,    325, 

350. 
Polish  school  strike,  258,  259. 
Pomerania,  121,  158,  254,  257,  317. 
population  of  Germany,  81,  82. 
Port  Arthur,  32. 
Porta  Pia,  29. 
Posadowsky,      Arthur,      Count      von 

(184s-    ),  164. 
Posen,    117,    123,   220,    236,    240,    241, 

243,  246,  247,  257,  260,  263,  264. 
press,  German,  17,  20,  21,  58,  70,  74, 

78,  359-388. 
Press  Ordinances  of  1863,  367. 
Prinetti,     Nobile    Giulio     (1851-      ), 

44- 
Probekandidat,  Der,  Ernst's,  354. 
Progressive  People's  Party,   118,   173, 

174. 
ProgjTnnasium,  327,  328. 
Prorealgymnasium,  328. 
protective  duties,  128,  152,  153. 
Prussia,    growth    of,    8,    9;    England 

and,   51;    in  the  empire,   104,    105, 

107;     agrarians    of,    128,    147-155; 

constitution  of,   134,   142,  145,  189; 

rural  labor  laws  in,   148,   149,  243  ; 

electoral      reform,      149;       Roman 

Catholics  in,   201,   204,   205 ;    Poles 

in.    235-265;     cities   of,    270,    275- 

277,    279,    285,    286,    288,    290-292 ; 

schools  of,  320,  322,  323,  334,  337, 

342,    346-351.    355-358:    press    of, 

361,  383- 
Prussian  Diet    (cf.  Landtag),  53,  loi, 

119,  127,  156,  167,  190,  147. 


public  lecture  courses,  312. 
Puster  Valley,  237. 

Queen  Victoria,  53,  65,  iii. 

Raczynski,  Count,  242. 

Radical-commercial  group,  120,  121. 

Radical  party,  53,  61,  118,  119,  124, 
125,  129,  133,  14s,  153,  157,  165, 
166,    172,    173,    19s,    276,    290,  356, 

377- 

Ratisbon,  274. 

Ratsherr,  281. 

Ratzel,  Friedrich  (1844-1904),  273. 

Realgymnasium,  331,  339. 

Realschule,  327,  328,  331,  332,  339, 
340. 

reciprocitj'  treaties,  152,  153. 

Reform  Gymnasium,  331. 

Reichsanzeiger,  370. 

Reichspartei,  120,  156. 

Reichsrat,  38. 

Reichstag,  military  bills  in,  10,  11; 
anti-British  debates,  64;  criticizes 
German  diplomacy,  75 ;  powers  of, 
101-104 ;  criticizes  the  Emperor, 
111-113;  party  formation  in,  116- 
'^ii ;  parliamentary  weakness  of, 
133-138;  influenced  by  industrial 
interests,  165-167  ;  Social  Democrats 
in,  191 ;  Roman  Catholic  party  in, 
202  ;  takes  revenue  away  from  cities, 

293- 
Reichstag  building,  308. 
"reinsurance  agreement,"  31. 
religious  instruction   in   schools,    353- 

356- 
" reptile  funds,"  368. 
Residenz,  288. 

Reuter's  Bureau,  73,  363,  371. 
Reutter,  Colonel,  229,  230. 
revanche,  7. 
revisionists.    Social    Democratic,    178, 

188,  198. 
Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  360. 
Rheinweslfalische  Zeilung,  378. 
Rhine,  22,  122,  155,  221,  269,  272,  275, 

350. 
Rhineland,  81,  144,  154,  159,  277,  280. 
Rhine  League  of  Cities,  274. 
Rhine  Palatinate,  362. 


398 


INDEX 


Rhine  Province,  i6o,  276. 
Rhine-Westphalian   district,   166,   167, 

271,  300. 
Richelieu,  43. 
Richter,  Eugene  (1838-1906),  117,  124, 

133- 
Riga,  237. 
river  tolls,  155. 

Roberts,  Earl  (1832-1915),  112. 
Robespierre,  51. 
rolnik,  253. 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  117,  197,  200, 

201-216,  246. 
Rome,  30,  so,  74,  363,  367,  368. 
Roon,  Count  Albrecht  von  (1803-79), 

13- 

Rostock,  350. 

Royal  Colonization    Commission,  247, 

249,  252. 
Royal  Decree  of  1900,  331. 
Ruhr,  161,  194,  189. 
rural  communes,  276. 
rural  labor  laws,  148,  149,  265. 
Russia,   7,    II,    27,    28,   30-37,   39-41, 

54,  81,  200,  239,  240,  264,  323,  369. 
Russian  Poland,  240,  241,  244,  260. 
Russo-Japanese  War,  S3,  37.  62,  264. 
Ruthenians,  38,  39,  263. 
Ryswick,  peace  of,  219. 

Saar,  231. 

Saarbriicken,  160. 

Sachsenganger,  244,  252. 

Sadowa,  7. 

Saloniki,  36. 

Samoa,  74,  85. 

Sanjak  of  Novibazar,  36. 

Sarajevo,  40,  69. 

Savoy,  29. 

Saxony,  s3,  81,  159,  161,  245,  271,  272, 

279,   28s,   292,  327,  334,  339,     345, 

347,  348. 
Scheidemann,    Philip    (1865-     ),    13s, 

136,  191. 
Schiller,  309,  315. 
Schlafstelle,  304. 
Schleswig-Holstein,  117,  123,  221,  225, 

264,  270,  281. 
SchmoUer,     Gustav     von     (1838-     ), 

271,  301. 
school  boards,  337,  338. 


School  Conference  of  1890,  331,  334. 

school  strike,  Polish,  258,  259. 

school  synods,  341. 

Schopenhauer,  385. 

Schul-Pforta,  340. 

Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt,  141,  186, 188. 

Schwetz  on  the  Vistula,  257. 

"scrap  of  paper,"  70. 

Scutari,  45. 

secondary  schools,  321,  326,  327,  338, 
341,  343,  344,  347,  35i- 

Second  Balkan  War,  26. 

Sedan,  4. 

semi-oflBcial  press,  370-373. 

Septennat,  10,  205,  209,  217. 

Serbia,  19,  34,  35,  38,  45,  68,  373. 

Sesenheim,  218. 

Settlement  Law,  254. 

Sevastopol,  7. 

Seven  Years'  War,  32,  51. 

Sheik  of  Koweit,  94,  95. 

Shuster,  Morgan  (1877-     ),  94. 

Sick  Insurance  Act,  181. 

Sieges- Allee,  308. 

Silesia,  117,  121,  123,  159,  211,  213, 
238,  241,  24S,  254,  257,  270,  272,  317. 

SimpUcissimiis,  381. 

simultan  schools,  352,  355. 

"sixteen  to  ten"  policy,  67. 

six-year  schools,  327,  328. 

Slovaks,  38. 

Slovenes,  38. 

Social  Democratic  Workingmen's  party, 
179. 

Social  Democrats,  anti-national  atti- 
tude of,  60,  61,  86,  97,  116;  attack 
the  crown,  107,  108,  iii,  135,  138, 
157,  191,  192;  attack  the  Prussian 
constitution,  134,  189-igi ;  attract 
radical  spirits,  119,  195-196;  his- 
tory and  growth  of,  11 8,  177-183; 
antagonize  all  other  parties,  130,  131, 
171,  172,  188,  195-197;  participate 
in  government  of  smaller  states,  141 ; 
enter  Prussian  Landtag,  145,  189- 
191 ;  support  labor  interests  in 
parHament,  167-169,  192-199;  dis- 
cipline and  doctrinarianism,  184, 
185;  gradual  modification  of  pro- 
gram, 185-189;  begin  to  develop 
a  national  spirit,  197-199. 


INDEX 


399 


socialism,  177. 

socialists  of  the  chair,  177. 

Socialist-Proletarian   group,    120,    121. 

Society  of  Jesus,  208,  238. 

sokol,  253. 

Solifemo,  28. 

Solomon  Islands,  86. 

Sorbs,  237. 

South  Africa,  57,  59,  264. 

South  African  republics,  56,  112. 

South    German,    140,    156,    173,    i8g, 

179,  298. 
South  Morocco,  89. 
South  Sea  Protectorate,  86. 
South  Seas,  85. 
South  Slavs,  41. 

Southwest  Africa,  54,  85,  86,  129. 
Sozialislische  Monatshejie,  184,  186. 
Spahn,  Peter  (1846-     ),   135,   136. 
Spain,  58,  86,  200. 
Sporades,  46. 
St.  Isidore  Clubs,  252. 
St.  Petersburg,  31,  35,  74,  381. 
St.  Privat,  23,  233. 
Stadtrat,  281. 
Stadtverordneten,  278. 
Stargard,  245. 
Statthalter,  222. 
Stein,    Heinrich    Karl,    Freiherr    von 

(1757-1831),  275. 
Strasburg,   4,    23,   106,   177,   226,   270, 

288,  298,  300,  302,  304,  305- 
Strasburg  University,  225. 
Stuttgart,  269,  280,  281,  306,  318. 
Styria,  38. 

Siiddeutsche  MonatshefU,  360. 
sugar  taxes,  131. 
Swabian  League  of  Cities,  274. 
Switzerland,  72. 
syndicates,  162,  165,  166. 

Tdgliche  Rundschau,  64,  372,  374. 

Tangier,  17,  79. 

Tannenberg,  238. 

tariff  legislation,  152,  159. 

tariff  on  foodstuffs,  152,  297,  376. 

Taurus  mountains,  92,  93. 

teachers'  exchange,  25. 

technical   universities,    271,    312,   332, 

Hi- 
"terrible  year,"  56,  217. 


Teutonic  Knights,  237,  238,  247,  308. 

Tews,  J.  (i860-     ),  347. 

Thaddeus   of   Warsaw,    Jane    Porter's, 

235- 
The  Man  Who  Was,  Kipling's,  54. 
Thiers,    Louis    Adolphe    (i 797-1877), 

3.  S,  217. 
Thionville,  233. 
third  republic,  5. 
Thirty  Years'  War,  139,  219. 
Thorn,  peace  of,  238,  245. 
three  class  system,  Prussian,  143,  189, 

278. 
Three  Emperors'   Agreement,    27,   31. 
Three  Years'  Service  Law,  French,  12, 

20. 
Thuringia,  97,  271,  272. 
Thyssen,  August  (1840-     ),  163. 
Tiergarten,  BerUn,  308,  309. 
Tigris,  69,  94. 
Togo,  85. 
Toul,  3,  23. 

Transbalkan  Railway,  36. 
Transvaal,  56. 

Treitschke,  Heinrich  von  (1834-96),  g6. 
Treptow,  183,  187. 
Treves,  221. 
Triest,  44. 
Triple   .\lliance,    17,    28,    30,   32,   42- 

48,  59,  62,  72. 
Triple  Entente,  24,  42,  48,  62. 
Tripoli,  19,  42,  47,  58. 
Tunis,  16,  19,  30. 
Tyrol,  38,  44. 
Turin,  29,  48. 

Turkey,  36,  46,  58,  74,  90,  91. 
"two  for  one"  policy,  66. 

Ullstein,  Louis,  380. 
Ulm,  302. 

Ultra-conser\'atives,  145,  148,  156. 
unearned  increment  tax,  131,  293. 
uniconfessional  schools,  350. 
United  States,  85,  270,  359. 
univeral  suffrage,  102,  213. 
universities,  German,  271,  312,  349. 
university  extension,  312. 
Urville,  225. 

Velhagen  und  Klasings  Monatshefte,  360. 
Venetia,  28,  42. 


400 


INDEX 


"Verbotens, "  221,  287. 

Verdun,  13,  23,  263. 

Verein  fiir  Wohnungsreform,  301. 

Versailles,  6,  24,  140. 

veterinary  schools,  271. 

Victor      Emmanuel      II       (1820-78), 

king  of  Italy,  27,  30,  203. 
Victor  Emmanuel  III  (1869-     ),  king 

of  Italy,  45. 
Victoria  (1840-1901),   Crown  Princess 

of  Prussia,  German  Empress,  54. 
Vienna,  26,  31,  35,  237. 
Vigo,  323. 
Vionville,  23. 

Virchow,  Rudolf  (1821-1902),  204. 
Vistula,  ss,  37,  50,  155,  238,  264. 
viva  voce  vote,  279. 
vocational  schools,  S3S,  334- 
Volksschule,    14,    260,   311,   314,    321, 

322,    326,  327,    330,    332,    333-335. 

337-352,  357.  358. 
Vollmar,  Georg  Heinrich  von  (1850-     ), 

187. 
Vorschule,  327. 

Vorwdrts,  Berlin,  184,  374,  376. 
Vosges,  4,  10,  221. 
Vossische    Zeitung,    Berlin,     375,  386, 

387. 
vote  of  censure,  137. 
vote  to  the  Left,  196. 

Wacht  am  Rhein,  218. 
Wagner,  Adolf  (1835-     ),  177. 
Waldeck-Rousseau,  Pierre  Marie  (1846- 

1904),  7. 
Waldersee,   Count  Alfred  von   (1832- 

1904),  88,  89. 
Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,  207. 
Waltz,  Jakob  (Jean  Jacques)  (1873-   ), 

238. 
war  indemnity,  3,  5. 
Wars  of  Liberation,  51. 
Warsaw,  235,  236,  240. 
Warthe,  238. 

Washington,  68,  74,  363,  370,  373. 
Waterloo,  51. 
Water  Poles,  254. 


Wawrzyniak,  254. 

Weimar,  270,  314,  347. 

Weimar  Volkszeitung,  193. 

Wends,  237. 

Wermuth,  Adolf  (1855-     ),  283. 

Weser,  155. 

West  Africa,  63. 

West  Prussia,  117,  121,  123,  235,  240, 

241,      243,     247,      254,     257,     263, 

264. 
Westostlicher  Divan,  Goethe's,  93. 
Westphalia,    81,    159,    161,    206,     213, 

244,  254,  25s,  261,  280;    treaty  of, 

219,  220.  ^ 
Wetterle,   Emile   (1861-     ),   225,    232, 
white  slave  traffic,  214. 
Wiesbaden,  352. 
Wilhelm  Meisler,  Goethe's,  52. 
Wilhelm  Tell,  Schiller's,  59,  315. 
William  of  Wied  (1877-     ),  Prince  of 

Albania,  36,  46. 
William      I      (179  7- 1888),      German 

Emperor,  3,  6,  loi,  104,  105,  180. 
William       II       (1859-     ),       German 

Emperor,  15,  16,  32,  55,  56,  59,  85, 

88,  89,  90,   105-113,   134,   136,   182, 

191,  205,  224,  229,  336,  373. 
Windthorst,    Ludwig    (1312-91),    117, 

122,  202,  205,  206,  209. 
Wolff's  Bureau,  74,  362,  363.  370,  371, 

379- 
woman's  suffrage,  198. 
Worth,  219. 
Wiirtemberg,  4,  10,  140,  141,  188,  203, 

277,  279,  281,  288,  358. 
Wiirzburg,  270. 

Young  Liberal  Association,  172. 
Young  Turks,  90,  93. 

Zabem,   136,   229. 

Zentralverband  deutscher  Industrielle, 

165. 
Zet,  252. 

Zukunft,  Berlin,  24,  108. 
Zweckverband,  296. 
Zwischenrufe,  138. 


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